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“DON’T MOVE, JESS. T AM COMING UP.” 
“The Radio Girls at Forest Dodge.” 


Page 87 




the radio girls at 

FOREST LODGE 

OR 

The Strange Hut in the Swamp 

BY 

MARGARET PENROSE 

AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN,” “THE RADIO 
GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND,” “DOROTHY DALE 
SERIES,” “MOTOR GIRLS SERIES,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 












BOOKS FOR GIRLS 

By MARGARET PENROSE ^ _ 

I2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. ' / ‘ 1 

RADIO GIRLS SERIES 

THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN 

THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM 

THE RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND 

THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE 

DOROTHY DALE SERIES 

DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY 

DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL 

DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET 

DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS 

DOROTHY DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS 

DOROTHY DALE’S CAMPING DAYS 

DOROTHY DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS 

DOROTHY DALE IN THE CITY 

DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE 

DOROTHY DALE IN THE WEST 

DOROTHY DALE’S STRANGE DISCOVERY 

DOROTHY DALE’S ENGAGEMENT 

DOROTHY DALE TO THE RESCUE 

MOTOR GIRLS SERIES 

THE MOTOR GIRLS 

THE MOTOR GIRLS ON A TOUR 

THE MOTOR GIRLS AT LOOKOUT BEACH 

THE MOTOR GIRLS THROUGH NEW ENGLAND 

THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CEDAR LAKE 

THE MOTOR GIRLS ON THE COAST 

THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CRYSTAL BAY 

THE MOTOR GIRLS ON WATERS BLUE 

THE MOTOR GIRLS AT CAMP SURPRISE 

THE MOTOR GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS 


CUPPLES Sc LEON COMPANY 

Publishers New York 



Copyright, 1924, by 

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 


The Radio Girls at Forest 'Lodge 
Printed in U. S. A. 

JUN 19*24 

©C1A793771 
^ I 
















CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PACE 


I. 

Great Expectations 

. 



i 

II. 

The Counterfeit 

Bill 



12 

III. 

Henrietta . 





19 

IV. 

An Accusation . 





29 

V. 

To the Rescue . 





35 

VI. 

The Start . 





42 

VII. 

The Wrecked Bridge 




49 

VIII. 

Risky Business . 


.. 

.. 


56 

IX. 

On the Hunt . 

.. 

.. 



63 

X. 

Ghosts . . 


.. 



7i 

XI. 

Phrosy . 





79 

XII. 

Queer Actions . 





90 

XIII. 

The Race 





99 

XIV. 

In the Mud . 





115 

XV. 

Lost in the Woods 





122 

XVI. 

From the Swamp 





128 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII. Payment of a Debt . . . 136 

XVIII. Alarmed.. . 143 

XIX. In Danger . . . . . . 152 

XX. The Fire.160 

XXI. A Terrible Battle . . 167 

XXII. The Escape ...... 173 

XXIII. Suspicion. 179 

XXIV. Imprisoned. 187 


XXV. A Capture by Radio . . . 194 









THE RADIO GIRLS AT 
FOREST LODGE 

CHAPTER I 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 

“T DON’T know much about your Aunt 
Emma, Burd, but I am quite certain I 
shall adore her.” 

Burd Ailing, pudgy and good-natured, looked 
at Amy Drew and slowly grinned. 

“Good for you, Amy,” he said, returning to 
his plate of ice cream with renewed vigor. 
“People either hate Aunt Emma or love her. I 
am glad you have decided on the latter.” 

“She must be a strange sort of person, your 
Aunt Emma,” said Jessie Norwood, the third of 
the little party seated around the table at the 
Dainties Shop. “I like people who have positive 
characters.” 

“Oh, Aunt Em is positive enough, if that is 
what you like,” chuckled Burd. “The worst 
thing about her is that she doesn’t seem to approve 
of that characteristic in others.” 

“You say this Aunt Emma of yours owns this 


2 


GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


place called Forest Lodge?” Jessie interrupted 
eagerly. “Where is it, Burd?” 

“In a forest, I suppose,” murmured Amy Drew. 

“How bright you are,” scoffed Burd. “Forest 
Lodge is on Lake Towako, about forty miles 
from New Melford,” he added to Jessie. “Aunt 
Em wants to spend a week or two up in the woods, 
and she was bemoaning the fact, by letter, that 
she had no one to go with her. I mean, no ladies. 
Of course, I’m already booked to go.” 

“How about us?” interposed Amy, smiling her 
sweetest. “Wouldn’t we do?” 

“Would you like to?” cried Burd, his face 
lighting up over the idea. 

“Amy, how could you propose such a thing!” 
interposed Jessie, demurely. “Don’t you know 
you practically asked for an invitation?” 

“Leave out the practically and you will have 
it,” returned Amy, unabashed. “Besides, didn’t 
you hear Burd say his poor dear aunt would be 
lonely away up there in the woods by herself? 
Be charitable, Jessie! Be charitable.” 

“But, say, if you girls really think you would 
like to go, I know Aunt Em will be more than 
glad to have you,” said Burd. “She will greet 
you as gifts from heaven.” 

“Well, Jess may look like an angel, but I am 
sure I don’t,” remarked Amy, paying fond atten¬ 
tion to the remaining portion of her George 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


3 


Washington sundae. “Never mind the compli¬ 
ments, Burd. Tell us more about your aunt.” 

“Do you think Nell Stanley could go too?” 
broke in Jessie, eagerly. The prospect of a two 
weeks’ added vacation at Forest Lodge was 
becoming alluring. 

“Sure thing! The more the merrier,” Burd 
answered, heartily. He finished his ice cream 
and motioned to Nick, the clerk, to bring more 
George Washington sundaes. “She is a jolly old 
soul and never is happy unless completely sur¬ 
rounded by young folks.” 

*“Oh, is she so very old?” asked Amy. 

“We-ell, not so old as to be exactly decrepit,” 
said Burd, judicially, though his eyes were merry. 
“She can still hop around pretty lively when occa¬ 
sion requires. But I will not tell you another 
word,” he added, his round face as severe as so 
habitually merry a countenance could ever be¬ 
come. “Whatever else you learn about the lady, 
you will have to learn from her personally. 
I refuse to give away a blood relative.” 

“But, Burd, all this is so very wonderful!” 
cried Jessie. “I never dared hope we would have 
another chance for fun this summer before school 
opens.” 

“Oh, Jess, remind me not,” commanded Amy, 
with a groan. “As Miss Seymour would say, 



4 


GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


‘Why intrude so gloomy a thought upon this 
joyous hour?’ ” 

The Miss Seymour of whom Amy spoke was a 
teacher of English in the high school which Jessie 
and Amy and their friend, Nell Stanley, attended. 

The Radio Girls had returned from a wonder¬ 
ful vacation on Station Island only a few days 
before this story opens. And now had come this 
possibility of spending the short remainder of 
their school vacation at a typical hunting lodge 
in the heart of a forest. Small wonder that with 
this alluring prospect before them they could not 
bear the mention just then of school and studies, 
for to their eager minds the possibility of the visit 
looked like certainty. 

“Have you told Darry yet?” Jessie asked, and 
Burd favored her with a look that was almost 
pitying. Darry, or Darrington Drew, to give 
him the benefit of his full name, was Amy’s 
brother and Burd Ailing’s closest chum. The two 
boys, though utterly unlike in looks and disposi¬ 
tion, were inseparable. 

“Sure, I’ve told Darry,” he said, in reply to 
Jessie’s question. “His enthusiasm over the 
project knows no bounds. Says it has been his 
lifelong ambition to get in close contact with the 
forest rangers and study their methods of fighting 
forest fires.” 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


5 


“Oh, do they have fires up there, too?” queried 
Amy. 

“Wherever there is a forest, there are bound 
to be fires once in a while,” Burd informed her, 
from the heights of his superior wisdom. Darry 
and Burd, being in college, were several years 
older than the high school girls, and it was seldom 
that they missed an opportunity to impress that 
fact upon Jessie and Amy. “That’s where the 
forest rangers come in. And, believe me, some¬ 
times they have their work cut out for them, too.” 

“Oh, Burd, please tell me more about it,” 
begged Jessie. 

“I can’t tell you much,” replied Burd, modestly, 
“because I don’t know a great deal about the work 
of the forest rangers—nothing, in fact, except 
what I have read. But I know there is one thing 
that will interest you girls mightily.” 

“Bet you another George Washington sundae 
I know what it is,” said Amy, quickly, and when 
Burd laughingly took her up she pronounced the 
one word “Radio!” with proud emphasis. 

“Oh, I know,” broke in Jessie, before Burd 
could speak. “I heard Daddy Norwood talking 
about it one night to Momsey, and it was awfully 
interesting, even though at that time I was not 
particularly interested in radio. They use it— 
radio, I mean—fighting fires and things, don’t 
they?” 



6 


GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


“Especially things,” agreed Burd, with a grin. 
Then, becoming suddenly conscious of the check 
at his elbow, he looked up and found Nick’s 
worried gaze upon him. The Dainties Shop was 
filling up and their table was needed. 

The girls took in the situation at a glance and 
rose laughingly while Burd went over to settle 
with Nick, much to the relief of the latter. 

Burd seemed to be having some trouble getting 
his change, and while they waited for him outside 
the door of the Dainties Shop the girls gayly 
discussed this new prospect. 

“I am dreadfully anxious to meet Aunt Emma,” 
Amy was saying when she felt a slight touch on 
her arm and turned sharply about. 

A tall, slender girl was standing there, and on 
her face was a dead white pallor that amazed 
and shocked the robust girls. 

She was holding toward them a five-dollar bill 
and Amy, the irrepressible, laughed suddenly as 
her gaze fell upon it. 

“Thanks, so much,” she murmured; “but I 
don’t happen to need it just now.” 

“Oh, Amy, hush!” cried Jessie, as she saw the 
mouth of the strange girl set in a thin straight 
line and her eyes grow hostile. 

“I wanted to ask you if you would change this 
for me,” said the stranger in a colorless voice 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


7 


that matched the pallor of her face. “But if 
you don’t care to-” 

She turned away, but Jessie caught her quickly 
by the sleeve. 

“Oh, wait a minute, please,” she said. “I am 
sure I can change the bill for you.” 

She fumbled in her bag, but Amy, instantly 
regretting her flippant speech, found the money 
first in her own small bag and handed it with an 
apologetic smile to the girl. 

“I’m sorry I was rude,” she said. “I didn’t 
understand.” 

This apology meant a great deal, coming, as 
it did, from Amy, but the tall, pale girl seemed 
scarcely to notice. She accepted the five one- 
dollar bills, giving her own five-dollar note in 
exchange. Am,y stuffed the bill in her pofcket, and 
with a muttered word of thanks the stranger 
turned and walked off swiftly. She did not turn 
back, and in another moment a street corner hid 
her from view. 

“I must say she isn’t very polite,” grumbled 
Amy, as Burd joined them. “After humbling my 
perfectly good pride in the dust and everything. 
Imagine me apologizing!” 

“If I had not seen it I certainly would not have 
believed it,” agreed Jessie, cheerfully, and Amy 
shot her an injured look. 

“You mean heard it,” she corrected frigidly. 




8 


GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


“If I cared to be unkind, my dear, I might remind 
you that an apology can never be seen!” 

Burd went with them as far as the Norwood 
place in Roselawn. There he left them, intimat¬ 
ing that he and Darry had important business in 
town and would not see them till later. 

“Make it as much later as you like,” Amy told 
him cheerfully. “We shan’t pine away and die 
in your absence.” 

As a matter of fact, the girls were far too busy 
for the remainder of that afternoon to give the 
boys more than a passing thought. They chat¬ 
tered like magpies of the possible trip to Forest 
Lodge while, with skilful fingers, they over¬ 
hauled the radio set which Jessie and Amy them¬ 
selves had set up in the pretty and spacious living 
room of Jessie’s own suite of rooms in the Nor¬ 
wood house. Jessie had brought a new detector 
from town and was bent upon trying the effect of 
it upon her set without delay. 

“We must be ready for the special radio con¬ 
cert to-night,” Jessie reminded her, when Amy 
protested against the “hard labor” her friend 
imposed. “It wouldn’t do to miss it, and you 
know this detector is working badly.” 

Mrs. Norwood, known fondly to her daughter, 
and to most of her daughter’s intimate friends as 
well, as “Momsey,” was away from home that 
afternoon—a matter of great regret to Jessie, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


9 


who had hoped to talk over with her at once the 
invitation for Forest Lodge and ask her consent 
to the project. 

It was late before she returned, and by that 
time the girls had “jacked up” the radio set until 
it was working perfectly. They fell upon Mrs. 
Norwood simultaneously, bombarding her with 
facts and questions until Mrs. Norwood laughed 
in helpless bewilderment and begged them to 
begin all over again from the beginning and “go 
slowly.” This they did, and had hardly finished 
when the telephone bell rang. 

“Miss Ailing would like to speak to you, Mrs. 
Norwood,” announced the maid, coming into the 
room. 

The girls could hardly wait for the telephone 
conversation to come to an end, and, in their 
eagerness, did no more than stutter their ques¬ 
tions when Mrs. Norwood returned, a smile on 
her face. 

They were overjoyed to find Mrs. Norwood 
pleasantly willing to give her consent to the Forest 
Lodge project, especially now that Emma Ailing 
had given them her personal invitation to accom¬ 
pany her. It seemed that at some former time 
Mrs. Norwood and Miss Ailing had worked 
together in some benefit scheme, and Mrs. Nor¬ 
wood had been strongly attracted to the rather 
eccentric but good-hearted woman. 



io 


GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


“All of which is very lucky for us,” remarked 
the irrepressible Amy. 

“Though I must say,” Mrs. Norwood added, 
with a smile, “I don’t particularly envy Emma 
Ailing her present undertaking!” 

Jessie’s eyes twinkled as she said reproach¬ 
fully: “Don’t you think that is rather hard on 
us, Momsey?” 

Amy hastened home to gain permission to make 
the visit at Forest Lodge, but was persuaded with¬ 
out much difficulty to return for dinner, and as 
soon as the meal was over, the girls ran up to 
Jessie’s room to “listen in” on the special concert 
that was scheduled for that evening. 

They tuned the set to the wave length of the 
broadcasting station of the Stratford Electric 
Company and almost immediately heard a man’s 
voice speaking. The first words were sufficiently 
unusual to catch and hold their attention. 

“Before proceeding with the program, we wish 
to make a special announcement,” said the voice. 
“There is positive evidence that a counterfeit five- 
dollar bill is in circulation in this locality. The 
bill has a small v-shaped notch in one corner of it 
and the marking on the under side is indistinct. 
We wish all who hear this announcement to-night 
to be on the lookout for the counterfeit money, so 
that any one finding it in his possession may report 
it to the authorities.” That was all. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 


II 


The girls removed their head phones and 
stared at each other intently for a moment. It 
was evident that they were both thinking of the 
same thing. That five-dollar bill which the strange 
girl had asked Amy to change that afternoon! 

Amy reached for her purse and opened it. 

“If that girl wished a counterfeit five-dollar 
bill on me,” she declared, “I will pursue her to 
the ends of the earth and get it back.” 

“Quick! Let me see that bill,” urged Jessie. 

Together, heads almost touching, they examined 
the greenback which had come so strangely into 
their possession. To their inexperienced eyes there 
was nothing wrong with the marking. Then Jessie 
suddenly uttered an exclamation. She pointed to 
a tiny, v-shaped notch in one corner of it. 

“Amy, it is, it must be, one of the counterfeits!” 
she breathed. 



CHAPTER II 


THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 

E AGERLY Jessie and Amy scrutinized the 
bill again and, with the v-shaped notch to 
help them, they saw, or thought they saw, 
that the marking on the under side of the bill was 
a trifle blurred and indistinct. 

Even then they were not satisfied, but must run 
down to show the note to Mr. Norwood, who 
sat chatting with Momsey in the living room. 

“Daddy Norwood, if you tell me this bill is a 
counterfeit, I will never forgive you,” was Jessie’s 
greeting to her father, as she dropped on the arm 
of his chair and thrust the bill into his hand. 

“What’s this, what’s this?” exclaimed Mr. 
Norwood, smiling at the two girls. “What is all 
this talk about counterfeits ? Am I to understand, 
my daughter, that you have turned criminal?” 

“And she is so young, too,” murmured Amy, 
beneath her breath. 

“Please look at it, Daddy Norwood,” urged 
Jessie, indicating the bill which dangled carelessly 
from her father’s hand. 

“Well,” said the latter, mildly, “I am looking 


12 


THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


13 


at it. Now suppose you tell me what all the excite¬ 
ment is about.” 

Between them the girls told him of the 
announcement by radio of the dangerous counter¬ 
feit five-dollar bill that was in circulation. 

As they proceeded, the lawyer’s face became 
grave and he examined the bill carefully and with 
a sudden intense interest. 

“Hm! I have heard about this counterfeit 
money,” he said, after a pause during which the 
girls, and Mrs. Norwood, too, regarded him ex¬ 
pectantly. “And it is a very serious matter, let 
me tell you.” 

“But is this bill counterfeit?” asked Jessie, 
impatiently. 

Mr. Norwood looked up at her with a peculiar 
smile, then down at the note again. 

“It certainly is a remarkably clever imitation,” 
he said. 

“Then it is a counterfeit!” declared Jessie, and 
turned to face Amy, whose expressive face was 
a mirror of conflicting emotions. 

“Now I will have to keep my vow,” wailed the 
latter, “and follow that wretched girl all over the 
world!” 

“What for?” asked Mrs. Norwood, with an 
indulgent smile, for she was well used to Amy’s 
extravagances. 



14 


THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


“To recover my perfectly good five dollars, of 
course! Oh, dear, what a bore!” 

“Oh, so a girl palmed this off on you! Suppose 
you tell me some more about it,” said Mr. Nor¬ 
wood. “I am intensely interested.” 

Jessie and Amy told him about the strange girl 
who had accosted them before the Dainties Shop 
and gave as faithful a description as they could 
of her. Then they suddenly remembered the in¬ 
terrupted radio concert and dashed off to Jessie’s 
room to enjoy what was left of it. 

Madame Elva, a great favorite of the girls, at 
the broadcasting station of the Stratford Electric 
Company, gave several charming selections and 
the remainder of the program was so unusually 
fine and interesting that the girls became com¬ 
pletely absorbed and forgot for the time all such 
matters as tall thin girls and troublesome five- 
dollar bills. 

It was not till the following morning that 
Jessie revived the subject. The four of them, 
Jessie, Amy, her brother Darry, and Burd Ailing 
were sitting on the Norwood veranda talking over 
plans for the trip to Forest Lodge. The girls 
had already, earlier in the day, talked with Miss 
Ailing over the telephone. 

It was a fine morning and the handsome Nor¬ 
wood estate had never looked pleasanter and 




THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


15 


more luxurious than it did in the full glare of the 
morning sunlight. 

The smooth sweep of lawn, sloping down to the 
broad, shaded boulevard, was dotted with flower¬ 
ing shrubs. Beside the house and a little to the 
rear, began the beautiful rose gardens which were 
the pride of Mrs. Norwood’s heart, and of all 
Roselawn as well. 

In fact, this section where the Norwoods and 
the Drews lived had been dubbed Roselawn by 
reason of the beautiful and gorgeous rose gardens 
that abounded in that district. 

On the farther side of Bonwit Boulevard was 
the home of the Drews, a rambling old house 
which had once been a farmhouse but had been 
remodeled by Mr. Drew into an up-to-date and 
handsome building. There dwelt Wilbur and 
Sarah Drew, the parents of Amy, Amy, herself, 
and her brother Darrington—the latter, however, 
only on those rare occasions when Yale “relaxed 
her grip on him.” 

The four young people had had many good 
times together and since Jessie and Amy had “dis¬ 
covered” radio their adventures had been replete 
with thrills and excitement. 

The two girls had astonished their friends and 
relatives by successfully installing a radio set in 
Jessie’s room. 

Then one day had come a mysterious call out 



i6 


THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


of the air, and how the girls went to the rescue of 
a girl wanted as a witness in an important law 
case has been told in detail in the first volume of 
this series, entitled “The Radio Girls of Rose- 
lawn.” 

Since that time the girls had made the acquaint¬ 
ance of the owner of a large sending station and 
through him had been permitted to get “On the 
Program,” much to their satisfaction. Then they 
had gone to “Station Island,” and later had taken 
a trip on board the Marigold, a steam yacht willed 
to Darry by his uncle. The vessel took fire, and 
how the young folks had to fight to escape in 
safety is related in the volume before this, called 
“The Radio Girls on Station Island.” 

It was of this last adventure that they were 
thinking and talking now as they sat in idle luxury 
upon Jessie Norwood’s porch. 

“The poor old Marigold is almost a total loss,” 
Darry said, regretfully. “I have laid her up for 
repairs, and, judging from the amount of work 
there is to be done on her, it looks as if she would 
be in dry dock a considerable time.” 

“Oh, dear! No more chance to inspect the 
bottom of the sea!” sighed Amy. “I think you 
are too mean, Darry Drew.” 

“Well, say,” interrupted Burd, rising from 
the depths of a comfortable chair and stretching 



THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


17 


luxuriously, “loth as I am to break up this happy 
party, I fear I must be going.” 

“He has a date and won’t let us in on it,” 
remarked Amy, reproachfully. 

“I sure have,” chuckled Burd, unabashed. “And 
wait till you see the lady!” 

Darry raised his eyebrows and grinned. 

“Aunt Emma, Burd?” he asked. 

Burd nodded and started for the steps. 

“Promised to meet her at the train in the old 
bus,” he said. “And if anything should make me 
late I should never hear the end of it. Coming, 
Darry?” 

The latter laughingly shook his head. 

“Go ahead, old lad,” he said. “I am not look¬ 
ing for punishment just yet.” 

“Why, don’t you like Miss Ailing?” asked 
Jessie, surprised. 

“I do. She is the salt of the earth,” replied 
Darry, emphatically, adding with a rueful smile: 
“The only trouble is, she doesn’t like me. Has 
a fixed opinion that I am a bad influence for Burd, 
or something of the sort.” 

“Well, aren’t you?” asked his sister, ma¬ 
liciously, adding quickly, as Burd seemed about 
to depart: “Oh, let me go along, Burd, I feel 
a severe attack of curiosity coming on. I must 
meet Aunt Emma.” 



i8 


THE COUNTERFEIT BILL 


“All right, come on—but your blood be upon 
your own head,” warned Burd, with a grin. 

After they had gone Jessie and Darry looked 
at each other and laughed. 

“I am almost as curious as Amy to meet Aunt 
Emma,” confessed Jessie. “She must be a very 
unusual person.” 

“She is kind-hearted and full of pep and fun, 
but as domineering as they make ’em,” pro¬ 
nounced Darry. “Just the same, this trip to 
Forest Lodge is a mighty fine idea. I prophesy 
we won’t have a slow minute while we are up 
there.” 

“How do we go, and when?” asked Jessie, with 
a mounting impatience to start on this adventure. 

“As soon as you girls are ready, I suppose,” 
returned Darry. “And as for our means of trans¬ 
portation, I gather from what Burd has let drop 
that we will drive up in Miss Ailing’s car—Aunt 
Emma driving,” he finished, with a chuckle. 

“Well, as long as Aunt Emma doesn’t try to 
put up our radio set for us, we won’t complain,” 
laughed Jessie. 



CHAPTER III 


HENRIETTA 

S PEAKING of radio,” Jessie said suddenly, 
the matter of the five-dollar bill coming 
to her mind, “have you heard anything 
about the circulation of counterfeit money, 
Darry?” 

The latter shook his head and looked surprised. 
Jessie told him of the special radio announcement 
that had come to them the night before and of 
their subsequent finding that the five-dollar bill 
in Amy’s possession was a counterfeit. 

Darry listened with interest, but his chief con¬ 
cern seemed to be for Amy and the loss of her 
five dollars. 

“Hard luck,” he laughed. “Now she will have 
to do without George Washington sundaes for 
the next six months to make up.” 

“But the poor girl who gave her that five-dollar 
bill-” 

“Poor girl!” exploded Darry, sitting up straight 
in his seat to stare at Jessie in astonishment. “I 
am used to your kind heart, Jess, but this is more 
than I could expect, even of you. Why pity a girl 
19 



20 


HENRIETTA 


who passes a counterfeit bill? She probably is 
one of a gang of counterfeiters.” 

“Oh, I should hate to believe that,” said 
Jessie, quickly. “Somehow, she didn’t look exactly 
dishonest.” 

“Yet she gave you—or Amy, rather—a coun¬ 
terfeit bill in exchange for five good ones,” Darry 
argued. “That doesn’t seem exactly honest, you 
know.” 

“Just the same, I don’t intend to believe any 
one guilty until the guilt is proved,” said Jessie, 
stoutly, and Darry, from the superior heights of 
his age, bent upon her a tolerant smile. Despite 
his slightly patronizing manner, Darry really re¬ 
garded this chum of Amy’s as one of the squarest, 
most companionable girls he knew. For her 
age, he conceded, magnanimously, she sure was a 
wonder! 

“AH right,” he said. “Believe anything you 
like. And now, to change the subject to some¬ 
thing more pleasant, Miss Ailing told Burd that 
you girls would set the time to go; so, just when 
will you and Amy be ready for the trip to Forest 
Lodge?” 

That, indeed, was the all-important question 
to the Radio Girls in the days that followed. 
Although they had numerous costumes for all 
occasions, they suddenly discovered that their 
wardrobes contained nothing that was really suit- 



HENRIETTA 


21 


able for a vacation in a real, honest-to-goodness 
forest. This sad state of affairs, they decided 
unanimously, must be remedied immediately. 

“Because one cannot possibly have a good 
time,” Amy had argued, flippantly, “until one has 
the proper kind of clothes.” 

“It will be a dreadful bore to have to go shop¬ 
ping just now,” said Jessie, who was impatient 
of anything that would delay the wonderful trip. 
“But if we must, we must.” 

“You always have such a clear way of putting 
things, honey,” said Amy, irrepressibly. “And, 
oh, I saw the darlingest sports suits and things in 
Letterblair’s window.” 

Letterblair’s was a fashionable shop in the 
downtown district of New Melford where the 
girls and their mothers did most of their shop¬ 
ping. It was from this shop that Jessie had won 
a beautiful sports coat, offered as a prize to 
the girl in New Melford who could think up the 
cleverest and most unique idea for a charitable 
bazaar that was to be held on the lawn of the 
Norwood estate. Jessie’s idea—the prize one— 
had been the devoting of one “concession” on the 
bazaar grounds to radio. The radio tent had 
been a tremendous success and, oh, how Jessie 
had enjoyed wearing that sports coat! 

So now it was to Letterblair’s that they went 



22 


HENRIETTA 


in search of suitable apparel for this newest 
outing. 

On the way to town they determined to stop and 
see Nell Stanley. Although they intended to urge 
her to accompany them on their trip to Forest 
Lodge, they had very little hope that she would 
be able to go. 

Nell was the eldest daughter of the Reverend 
Doctor Stanley, a minister much beloved in New 
Melford. “The Reverend,” as Nell affectionately 
called him, was a widower with four children, 
three younger than Nell. Although the income of 
the Stanley family was small, Nell managed won¬ 
derfully. Strong, healthy and capable, the young 
girl presided cheerfully over the parsonage and 
cared for her two younger brothers and her little 
sister, to whom she was elder sister and mother 
as well. 

Because of her many responsibilities, it was 
only upon rare occasions that Nell could share in 
the fun of the other two girls. But, in spite of all 
this and hard as her life might seem to some, no 
one had ever heard Nell Stanley complain. 

Nell herself greeted them as they came up to 
the parsonage. She was wearing a clean gingham 
dress and a dust cap and her handsome face was 
shining with health and hard work. 

“Hello!” she cried gayly. “You two look like 
conspirators. Come in if you can find room,” she 



HENRIETTA 


23 


invited, leading the way into the cluttered front 
room of the parsonage. “Sally and the two boys 
muss things up more quickly than I can straighten 
them out, I think.” 

Nell listened sympathetically while the two 
girls told her of the trip to Forest Lodge, but 
shook her head regretfully when they said Miss 
Ailing wanted her to accompany them. 

“I don’t see how I could manage it,” she said, 
adding thoughtfully: “Though I might get Mrs. 
Tompkins to take care of the children and keep 
house-” 

“Nell, you have a wonderful mind,” said Amy, 
with conviction. “Mrs. Tompkins was the very 
person I was about to suggest!” 

“I suppose the children would run wild,” said 
Nell, hesitating. 

“Let ’em. It would do them good for two 
weeks,” said Amy. 

“Nothing very bad could happen in that short 
time,” Jessie added, pleadingly. “And, Nell, we 
would have such fun.” 

“Don’t you suppose I know it?” retorted Nell, 
longingly. But she added, as she picked up a few 
of the scattered playthings in an attempt to re¬ 
store the room to order: “I will ask the Reverend 
about it, anyway; and if I can get Mrs. Tompkins 
I may go with you yet. Now run along downtown 
like good children. And you might bring us some 




24 


HENRIETTA 


ice-cream cones on the way back. The young ones 
would appreciate it particularly.” 

The girls agreed gayly, after winning from her 
a promise that she would come over some evening 
soon and “listen in” with them. 

“And bring Fol with you,” Amy added, as they 
went off. “He is a rather nice boy, considering 
his age.” 

In answer to this sally Nell laughed good- 
naturedly and made a face at Amy, an action—and 
Nell herself would have been the first to admit 
it—that was not at all a good example to set her 
ever-watchful and imitative little sister, Sally. 

Once at Letterblair’s, the girls discovered 
numerous other needs which had not occurred to 
them before, and it was past noon when they had 
successfully finished their shopping. 

“Now for home and lunch. Jess, I have an 
idea—” Amy paused and regarded her chum 
meditatively. “Why not run into that darling 
little new restaurant down the street and have a 
bite to eat there? It will be a lark.” 

“Suppose we do,” agreed Jessie. “I feel as 
though I would not be able to walk home without 
partaking of some nourishment first.” 

“I declare, it is late,” said Amy, as she glanced 
from the store clock to her wrist watch. “If I had 
had any notion you were going to keep me so long 




HENRIETTA 


25 


in this place, Jess Norwood, I would not have let 
you come with me.” 

“I like that!” laughed Jessie. “Especially since 
I have been waiting for you to get through for the 
past half hour.” 

“So are the righteous slandered,” sighed Amy. 
“My friends have formed the habit of putting all 
the blame upon my frail shoulders— Hello, what 
have we here?” 

She brought up short just outside the door of 
the shop and Jessie, following hurriedly, nearly 
ran into her. 

“Why the sudden halt?” she inquired. And 
just then came a shriek, whether of joy or anguish 
it would have been hard to tell. 

The next moment a small cyclone flung itself 
upon Jessie and held on to her, still shrieking— 
much to the delight of the passersby. 

“Help, call out the reserves!” chortled Amy, 
her voice choked with laughter, while Jessie tried 
vainly to disengage herself from the clutches of 
the small cyclone. “Henrietta Haney, do stop 
that shrieking. Oh—oh, you will be the death of 
me, yet!” 

By this time Jessie had been able to push her 
small assailant away from her, and, by holding 
very tightly to a pair of waving arms, found it 
possible to look into a small pointed face upon 
which every freckle stood forth. 



2 6 


HENRIETTA 


“Henrietta Haney—Hen,” admonished Jessie, 
with what severity the occasion permitted. “Do 
stop making so much noise, my dear. Why, every¬ 
body is looking at us.” 

“Well,” said this surprising child, “I shouldn’t 
mind their lookin’, if I was you, Miss Jessie. Ma 
Foley always says no amount of lookin’ ever hurt 
no one.” 

Jessie shot a helpless look at her chum, who 
was convulsed with mirth. Little Henrietta 
Haney, who had first introduced herself to the 
Radio Girls as a little waif from Dogtown— 
a down-at-heel district encroaching upon Rose- 
lawn—in search of her missing cousin, Bertha 
Blair, had since figured largely in their adven¬ 
tures. Owing to the interest of Mr. Norwood 
and Mr. Drew—both lawyers—the little girl had 
recently come into possession of part of Station 
Island. Henrietta, or “Hen,” as she was familiarly 
called, was inordinately proud of her inheritance 
and seldom overlooked an opportunity to make 
reference to “her island.” 

Now Jessie and Amy moved the child to a less 
conspicuous spot and questioned her concerning 
her presence there. 

“You surely did not come to New Melford all 
alone, Hen,” said Jessie, in concern, for she really 
would not have been greatly surprised at anything 



HENRIETTA 


27 


the wild child might do. “Isn’t somebody with 
you ?” 

“Well, Bertha come with me,” said the child, 
complacently; “but I left her.” 

“You what?” gasped Amy. 

“I left her,” repeated Hen, patiently. “We 
was cornin’ along, and all of a sudden I looks over 
and sees you and Miss Jessie and I just run 
through the crowd and left Bertha. I didn’t knock 
over more than one person, either,” she finished 
proudly. “And he was a little fat boy it didn’t 
hurt none.” 

“It only goes to show there is good in every¬ 
thing, even fat,” cried Amy, in a strangled voice, 
and even Jessie had to smile. 

“And you haven’t the least idea where Bertha 
is now?” questioned Jessie, searching the passing 
crowds for a familiar face. 

“Oh, she’ll turn up, Miss Jessie. She always 
does,” said the child, confidently, adding with the 
first trace of anxiety she had exhibited: “But I 
hope she don’t take too long. I got an awful 
ache where my tummy is. I’m gettin’ hungry, 
I guess.” 

Amy went off into a fresh paroxysm of mirth 
while Jessie questioned the child closely as to 
the exact location of Bertha and herself when the 
little girl had first seen the two Radio Girls. 
Being able to extract but the vaguest information 



28 


HENRIETTA 


from Hen, Jessie came to the conclusion that the 
only sensible thing to do was to wait just where 
they were until Bertha found them. 

“It was very naughty of you to run away so, 
Henrietta,” she scolded gently. “I hope you will 
never do a thing like that again.” 

“But, Miss Jessie!” the child protested, with 
wide-eyed surprise, “if I hadn’t run away from 
Bertha I couldn’t have caught you. I just had to 
run away.” 

At this logic Jessie shook her head helplessly 
while Amy regarded the remarkable child with 
unfeigned delight. As a matter of fact, Henrietta 
Haney was a perpetual joy to the fun-loving 
Amy—“better than a box seat at the circus,” she 
herself expressed it. 

“There’s Bertha now!” shrieked the child, sud¬ 
denly, and made another wild dash through the 
crowd, bumping into half a dozen indignant 
pedestrians as she went. 

Amy, watching this progress with delight, 
chuckled softly. 

“Thank goodness she is in Bertha’s charge, not 
ours!” she said. 



CHAPTER IV 


AN ACCUSATION 

B ERTHA BLAIR had been at one time a 
mystery to the Radio Girls. A witness in 
a very important law case being tried by 
Mr. Norwood, she had been spirited off by un¬ 
scrupulous persons and kept in captivity in order 
that her testimony might not be forthcoming. 

How the girl managed to reach a sending set 
in the tower of the old house where she was kept 
captive and send out a cry for help over the air¬ 
ways, and how the Radio Girls heard the cry for 
help over their own receiving set and hurried to 
the rescue, formed an incident of thrilling interest. 
Later, this same Bertha Blair had been revealed 
to the girls as the niece of Mr. Blair, superintend¬ 
ent of the Stratford Electric Company. 

At that moment Jessie saw Bertha coming 
toward them, holding the freckle-faced child by 
the arm and looking decidedly angry and out of 
sorts. 

“Henrietta is certainly ruining my disposition,” 
was her greeting to the two sympathetic girls. 
“I never know where she is from one moment to 


29 


30 


AN ACCUSATION 


the next. I would rather take a nest of hornets 
shopping than Hen.” 

“That seems kind of foolish, Bertha,” re¬ 
marked the strange child, gravely. “ ’Cause, you 
know, hornets don’t need clothes near as much 
as me!” 

Seeing that Amy was about to go into another 
paroxysm of mirth, Jessie hastily suggested lunch, 
a suggestion received with relief by Bertha and 
exuberance by Henrietta. 

“Miss Jessie seems to know just the sort of 
thing a body wants,” remarked the child, and 
Bertha, looking at Jessie, smiled. 

“I really don’t know what I shall do with her,” 
she said, in a low tone, as, after Jessie and Amy 
had each telephoned that they would stay in town 
for lunch, they all walked toward the restaurant. 
“She used to be bad enough, that’s a fact, but now 
there is no doing anything with her. Since she 
found out she owns that island-” 

“I own a island, I own a island, I own a 
island,” chanted the child, catching the last part 
of Bertha’s low-spoken sentence. “I own a island, 

I own a-” But the last words had risen to so 

shrill a tone that people were glancing curiously 
at them and Jessie felt called upon to interfere. 

“Even if you do own an island, or part of one,” 
she said gently, “you don’t need to tell everybody 
about it, dear.” 





AN ACCUSATION 


31 


“Well,” said the child, wrinkling up her funny 
little nose, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell every¬ 
body as long as it ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed 
about.’* 

“Oh, Henrietta, Henrietta 1” laughed Amy, 
gleefully. “How dull this life would be without 
you!” 

“Yes’m,” agreed Henrietta, dutifully. 

Bertha explained her presence in New Melford 
and then asked the girls why they had come down¬ 
town. When they told her about the proposed 
trip to Forest Lodge little Henrietta’s face fell 
woefully. 

“Then I won’t get to see you for two whole 
weeks,” mourned the little girl. But she soon 
added, with a sudden brightness of countenance : 
“I don’t suppose it would be noways possible to 
take me along, would it?” 

“I am afraid not, dear,” said Jessie, slipping 
an arm about the wistful little thing while Amy 
stifled a laugh at thought of what the boys would 
say if they proposed “ringing little Hen in on the 
trip.” “You will have to be at hand, anyway,” 
she added with sudden inspiration, “in case any¬ 
thing comes up about your island.” 

Little Hen’s face immediately lost all trace of 
w T istfulness. Her small countenance assumed the 
expression of importance it always wore when 
any one mentioned “her island.” 



32 


AN ACCUSATION 


“That’s so, Miss Jessie,” she agreed gravely. 
“I just couldn’t go and leave my island.” 

Henrietta’s appetite had long been a marvel to 
the girls, but on this occasion it seemed to them 
she put to shame all previous records. 

However, the girls noticed with approval—for 
they were really fond of the wild little thing— 
that Henrietta’s arms and legs had lost somewhat 
their resemblance to very thin broomsticks. Pros¬ 
perity was agreeing with the child. She was 
actually taking on flesh. 

The girls remarked this aloud, and to their 
surprise Henrietta looked more worried than 
pleased. 

“I don’t know what I would do if I was to get 
fat like Mrs. Foley,” she complained. “Mrs. 
Foley always said she was skinny just like me 
when she was a kid, and she didn’t begin to put 
on flesh till she was forty. Just think, if I was to 
get fat like her, I couldn’t never wear no more 
stylish clo’es!” and she gazed at the girls with 
tragic eyes. 

“You are right, you couldn’t!” laughed Amy, 
adding in an undertone to Jessie, “Just imagine 
Mrs. Foley in a coat suit!” 

As they started to leave the restaurant, Amy 
suddenly turned and made as though she would 
retrace her steps. 



AN ACCUSATION 


33 


“What’s the matter?” asked Henrietta, solicit¬ 
ously. “See a snake or somethin’?” 

“Something lots worse,” returned Amy, with 
a giggle, and pointed to a group of girls who had 
just turned the corner and were coming toward 
them. “Here come Belle Ringold and Sally, Jess. 
Can’t we dive into a hole somewhere until they 
get past?” 

“Too late,” sighed Jessie, with a sure knowl¬ 
edge of unpleasantness to come. “If we had only 
known we could have stayed in the restaurant and 
avoided them. Well, come along. We can’t get 
away from them now.” 

Belle Ringold and Sally Moon were two very 
unpleasant girls whom most of the people in New 
Melford disliked intensely. Belle and Sally had 
few friends, and those only the kind whose friend¬ 
ship can be bought with money and good times. 

Because Jessie and Amy, on the other hand, 
were popular with their townspeople and belonged 
to the class of girls who “do something,” Belle 
and Sally centered their spleen upon them, and the 
girls rarely met but what unpleasant words were 
passed. For that reason Jessie and Amy avoided 
the unpleasant girls whenever it was possible to 
do so. Now, however, it seemed that a meeting 
was inevitable. 

Jessie and Amy, with Bertha and Hen beside 



34 


AN ACCUSATION 


them, quickened their pace in order to pass Belle 
Ringold and her “crowd” as soon as possible. 

It Was plain that Belle welcomed the meeting 
as much as the other girls disliked it, for quarrel¬ 
ing, especially with such foes as Jessie and Amy, 
was the breath of life to her. So, instead of step¬ 
ping aside to let them pass, she stopped directly 
in front of them, making it impossible for them to 
get by without walking into the street. 

Jessie clasped little Hen’s hand tightly in her 
own, for the child hated Belle Ringold with a con¬ 
suming hatred and was accustomed to declare this 
feeling with appalling frankness. Even now, upon 
stealing a sidewise glance at her, Jessie could see 
that the child was bristling like a ruffled hen. 

“Well, it is all very well for you to look so 
innocent, you two,” cried Belle Ringold, charging 
hotly into the fray. “But perhaps you wouldn’t 
if you knew what I know about you.” 

“Anything new?” queried Amy, with deceptive 
sweetness. 

“Oh, nothing much,” declared Belle, with a toss 
of her head. “Only a little thing, like passing 
counterfeit bills!” 



CHAPTER V 


TO THE RESCUE 

T HIS charge was so absolutely from a clear 
sky that the Radio Girls remained motion¬ 
less for a moment, staring incredulously 
at the slanderer and her smirking companion. 
They were thunderstruck. It seemed impossible 
that even Belle Ringold should have said such a 
thing to them. 

It was little Hen who recovered first, and with 
a shrill shriek of rage she charged to the attack. 

“You horrid old thing!” she cried, one hand 
clenched and making frantic gestures in the air 
while the other tugged wildly in a vain attempt 
to free itself from Jessie’s grip upon it. “You 
know that’s a wicked fib, you do! That’s why 
you said it! Oh, just wait till I get at you! 

Oh—oh-” Jessie’s hand closed firmly over 

her mouth, choking off the furious words. 

“Stop it, Henrietta!” she commanded. “You 
only make it worse by talking like that. Come on, 
Amy, let’s get away from here.” 

“Going to meet Darry and Burd, I suppose,” 
sneered Belle, not moving from the path. 

35 



36 


TO THE RESCUE 


“I think it is simply disgraceful—” added the 
sharp voice of Sally Moon, who could always be 
depended upon to back up the girl she fawned 
upon, “I think it is a shame the way you kids run 
after those two boys-” 

“Especially since one of them happens to be 
my brother,” said Amy, disgustedly. “Really, you 
girls are too absurd.” 

Seeing that Belle and Sally were just warming 
up to a fresh display of rudeness and knowing 
that Amy would soon lose her temper completely, 
Jessie started once more to pass Belle. The latter 
did not budge an inch, but looked at Jessie with 
such sneering disdain that even her mild temper 
gave way to exasperation. 

“Are you going to let me pass, Belle Ringold?” 
she asked, in a low tone. 

“I would like to know why I should,” retorted 
the other girl, with an impudent toss of her head. 
“I don’t see why I should get out of the way for a 
person who passes counterfeit bills. As a matter 
of fact, I expect them to get out of my way.” 

This was too much for Henrietta. Her face 
was red with fury and every freckle seemed to 
stand out upon it in a little brown blotch. 

“Let me go, Miss Jessie! Just let me get at 
her! I’ll scratch her eyes out, I will, the mean 
old thing!” 

“Oh, Henrietta, Henrietta, hush. Don’t say 





TO THE RESCUE 


37 


any more.” And while she tried to quiet the 
frantic child Jessie was conscious of Amy’s voice, 
saying furiously: 

“If you don’t get out of the way and let us by, 

Belle Ringold, I’ll-” But the threat was 

destined never to be finished. 

There was the familiar growl of a motor horn, 
and as the girls looked around they saw the long 
low body of a touring car glide up to the curb 
and slow to a standstill. At the wheel was Burd 
Ailing, a grin upon his cheery countenance, and 
in the tonneau was Darry and a lady whom the 
girls did not recognize. However, it was suffi¬ 
cient that, at that moment, they recognized Darry 
and Burd! 

“Hello!” sang out the latter in a tone that 
showed he had estimated the situation perfectly. 
“Just in time to give you a lift, girls.” 

“What did I tell you ?” snapped Belle, chagrined 
at the interruption. “Didn’t I say they had a date 
with Darry and Burd?” 

“Always tagging around,” Sally Moon’s voice 
reached them, as, without another word, the 
Radio girls, with Bertha and Henrietta in tow, 
turned toward the car. “Just like big kids-” 

“Sorry we can’t take you all, girls,” called Burd 
to Belle and her crowd as he shifted the lever to 
low and the car moved slowly forward. “But, 
you see, we have a pretty good load as it is.” 





38 


TO THE RESCUE 


Dairy introduced the strange lady as Miss 
Ailing, “Aunt Emma,” and the girls were de¬ 
lighted at this opportunity to make her acquaint¬ 
ance. The lady who was to chaperone them on 
the two weeks’ jaunt to Forest Lodge was not at 
all the type of person that the inconsequential 
chatter of the boys had led them to expect. 

To be sure, Miss Ailing was thin, but hers was 
not the thinness of the dried-up spinster but rather 
the slenderness of an athletic woman who has 
kept herself physically fit. Her face was not 
handsome, but it was humorously alert and alive. 
Only around her mouth was a hint of the obstinacy 
for which Burd gave her credit. 

Miss Ailing was unmistakably enthusiastic 
about having the young folks with her at Forest 
Lodge, greeting them, as Burd had prophesied, 
as “gifts from heaven.” 

When they were nearing Nell Stanley’s house, 
Jessie suddenly remembered the ice-cream cones 
they had promised to bring the young ones at the 
parsonage, and insisted that the boys stop long 
enough to pay a visit to a convenient candy store. 

By that time little Hen was once more becoming 
an “empty void,” or at least she declared herself 
to that effect, so the entire party trooped into the 
store for ice cream. 

Later they stopped at the parsonage, but did 
not stay long as “Aunt Emma” Ailing declared 



TO THE RESCUE 


39 


herself in a tremendous hurry to get home. But 
Miss Ailing met Nell and gave her in person a 
cordial invitation to join the party at Forest 
Lodge. 

They saw Henrietta and Bertha to the very 
door of Mrs. Foley’s shack in Dogtown (for 
Henrietta had evinced a strong desire to visit her 
former guardian), thereby arousing a good deal 
of interest and admiration on the part of the 
dwellers there. “My, but that Henrietta Haney 
had come up in the world, with her fine friends, 
and all. Her ownin’ an island and visitin’ on it 
and drivin’ around in automobiles and the like. 
It’s a credit to the neighborhood, she’s getting 
to be.” So tongues clacked and heads wagged in 
Dogtown. 

As for Henrietta, you would have thought she 
was a princess at least by the way she held her 
freckled little nose to the sky upon entering the 
humble abode of Mrs. Foley. 

The girls chuckled as the machine left the 
squalid streets of Dogtown and entered the ex¬ 
clusive residential district of Roselawn. 

Jessie, Amy and Darry alighted at the gates of 
the Norwood estate, after gaining a promise from 
Miss Ailing that she would visit Jessie the follow¬ 
ing evening and see the wireless set “in action.” 

When the car bearing Burd and “Aunt Emma” 



40 


TO THE RESCUE 


had departed, the three young people turned with 
common consent toward the Norwood porch. 

“What were Belle Ringold and Sally Moon up 
to?” queried Darry, as they reached the house. 
“They looked mad enough to bite nails when we 
first caught a glimpse of them.” 

“Humph, I guess we were the ones who should 
have looked mad,” grumbled Amy as she settled 
herself comfortably in one of the big chairs on 
the porch. “Belle Ringold has called us just about 
every name in the calendar, but to-day she thought 
up a new one.” 

“She said we were passing counterfeit money,” 
added Jessie, a shadow crossing her face as she 
thought of that accusation. 

“She said what?” asked Darry again, staring. 
And when Jessie repeated Belle’s words he threw 
back his head and roared with laughter. 

“Well, that is rich!” he said, when he had re¬ 
covered his breath. 

“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” said 
Jessie, seriously. “We did not feel very much 
like laughing at the time.” 

“We were more inclined to throw bricks,” 
agreed Amy. “Those girls are getting impossible, 
Darry!” 

“I know they are,” returned the young fellow, 
seriously. “But what I was wondering about,” 
he added, curiously, “was how in time they got 



TO THE RESCUE 


41 


hold of the information that Amy got stung with 
the counterfeit bill!” 

“I don’t know,” said Amy, indifferently, adding 
with a chuckle: “I’m sure there is one girl who 
hasn’t told about it, and that is the tall thin girl 
who gave the bill to me.” 

“I have been wondering about her a good 
deal,” Jessie confessed. “I have a feeling that 
that girl is in trouble-” 

“Well, if she isn’t, she ought to be,” returned 
Amy, vehemently. “Just think of my five dollars 
and you won’t pity her so much.” 

“But she looked sick—almost as if she hadn’t 
had enough to eat,” insisted Jessie. “She was so 
tall and thin, and that white face against her coal 
black hair looked ghastly.” 

“Hold on a minute!” cried Darry, leaning for¬ 
ward and regarding Jessie intently. “Did this 
girl have blue eyes and unusually long, black 
lashes?” 

“Good gracious, Darry! do you suppose we 
studied the length of the girl’s lashes at a time 
like that?” drawled Amy. “Do have a heart!” 

But Jessie had made an impatient gesture. 

“She did have long lashes, Darry—black like 
her hair,” she said, eagerly. W T ith a low whistle 
Darry sank back in his chair. 

“Gosh,” he muttered, “I wonder if that could 
have been Link’s sister!” 




CHAPTER VI 


THE START 

"Tpv ARRY, what do you mean?” Jessie cried 
1 breathlessly. “Do you know this girl?” 

Darry regarded her strangely for a 
moment, then replied with a forced gayety that 
did not deceive Jessie for a moment: 

“How can I tell? You must admit your de¬ 
scription has been meager. There are millions 
of girls in the United States with blue eyes and 
black eyelashes, I suppose.” 

“There are more in Ireland,” murmured Amy. 

From that time on, try as Jessie might to break 
his silence, Darry remained absolutely dumb on 
the subject of the girl who had given Amy the 
counterfeit bill. Jessie knew instinctively that this 
very silence meant that he knew—or suspected—a 
great deal more than he wished to tell about this 
girl, and in exact proportion as his silence length¬ 
ened, her curiosity increased. She was piqued, 
too, to think that Darry could be so secretive. 
He had always seemed so frank and open in all his 
actions. He must, she decided unwillingly, think 
a great deal of this girl to be so careful to shield 
42 


THE START 


43 


her from curiosity—even the kindest and best 
intentioned curiosity lik#hers. 

The day after their meeting, Miss Ailing kept 
her promise to the girls and appeared at the Nor¬ 
wood home promptly at eight o’clock to “listen 
in” on the wonders of Jessie’s radio set. 

She came, she frankly admitted, in a skeptical 
mood, for she could not bring herself to believe 
that two such young girls could erect with any 
degree of success so complicated an apparatus as a 
radio receiving set. Miss Ailing belonged to the 
type of person who, while believing she can do 
nearly everything herself, has a good-natured 
contempt for the accomplishments of most of 
her sex. 

However, the girls proved to her that such a 
feat was indeed possible, and, after looking the 
radio set over, Miss Ailing pronounced herself 
converted. 

During the course of the evening Nell Stanley 
appeared, bringing with her Folsom Duckworth, 
a high school boy all the others knew well. 

“I fixed it up at home so that I can go to Forest 
Lodge with you,” said Nell. 

“If you three girls are going, what’s the matter 
with having Fol along?” suggested Burd. “That 
will make it three and three.” 

“Yes, do come with us,” urged Miss Ailing 
cordially. And so, after some talking, it was 



44 


THE START 


arranged. The young folks all liked Fol, even 
though he was rather of the quiet sort. 

After that the whole party grew merry at the 
thought of the good times ahead. As a fine 
orchestra was now giving dance music over the 
radio, a loud speaker was adjusted and soon one 
couple after another got up to dance. 

Burd’s Aunt Emma, like all athletic women, 
danced wonderfully well, and soon the boys were 
“cutting in” on her dances. 

“She is more popular than us—I should say 
we—young things,” Amy whispered gleefully in 
Jessie’s ear. “I will never be afraid of getting 
old again, after this.” 

“I think she is wonderful,” returned Jessie, in 
a low tone. “After this I am prepared to love 
even her obstinacy!” 

Altogether, the party was a huge success and 
there was not one among them more sorry than 
Miss Ailing when the lateness of the hour forced 
it to break up. 

“May I come again?” she asked of Mrs. Nor¬ 
wood, as the latter accompanied her to the door. 

“My dear, I wish you would,” returned Mrs. 
Norwood, with genuine cordiality. “I haven’t 
felt so young for years!” 

“And now,” sighed Jessie, after the last one— 
even Amy—had gone and she was left alone with 
her radio set, “to-morrow I shall have to take 



THE START 


45 


you all down, you dear old thing, wires and every¬ 
thing, and pack you up neatly so that you can go 
with us up to Forest Lodge. I wonder if you will 
like the trip as well as we expect to. Oh, radio, 
dear, we are going to have a lovely time!” 

Then, almost before they realized it, the morn¬ 
ing of departure had come. The radio set had 
been dismantled skilfully by Jessie and Amy and 
was ready for its forty-odd mile trip up into the 
mountains. 

Besides the radio apparatus, the girls carried 
very little luggage. Since they were to make the 
journey in Miss Ailing’s touring car—with the ex¬ 
ception of the three boys, who were to “tag along 
after them” in Darry’s roadster—it would be 
necessary to travel as light as possible. 

“Anyway,” Amy had remarked philosophically, 
“we’ll practically live in our outing suits during 
the two weeks and we’ll need very little else in the 
way of clothing.” 

“Except our bathing suits,” Jessie had laugh¬ 
ingly reminded her. “Burd says that the lodge 
is right on the shore of Lake Towako, you know, 
and there ought to be plenty of chances for fine 
swimming.” 

The morning of departure dawned gloriously 
bright. Jessie, waiting with her mother on the 
porch, heard the roar of an exhaust, and the next 
moment saw Darry’s black roadster leave the 



46 


THE START 


garage on the Drew place and back down the drive 
into the broad, shaded boulevard. 

This was about ten o’clock. Mr. Norwood, 
who was taking a half-holiday, came out, morning 
paper in hand, to say good-bye to his daughter. 

“Be a good girl and an honor to the Norwood 
name,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, and 
Jessie flung her arms about his neck and gave him 
a bear-hug. 

“You know I always am, Daddy Norwood,” 
she cried gayly. “Good-bye, Momsey dearest. 
Write to me, won’t you? I only wish you were 
coming too.” She was off down the w r alk, waving 
her hand gayly to Darry and Amy, who were 
already “honking” for her before the gate. 

“Here come Burd and Aunt Emma now,” Amy 
called out to her, pointing down the road. 

Miss Ailing was driving at a merry pace, Burd 
lounging in the seat beside her with hands folded 
conspicuously on his chest. In a moment the big 
car drew up beside the little roadster. 

“Glad to see you ready, girls,” said Aunt 
Emma, briskly. “Hop out, Burd, and you and 
Darry pile the luggage in the tonneau. I have an 
old salt’s nose for a storm, and I scent one brew¬ 
ing in the distance. The sooner w r e get started, 
the better it will be for all of us.” 

Spurred on by this injunction, the boys in a short 
time had everything ready for the start. 



THE START 


4 7 


“We’ll have to stop and pick up Fol and Nell,” 
Jessie reminded them. “But that won’t take long 
if they are only ready for us.” 

“Let’s hope they’ll be,” returned Darry, add¬ 
ing, as he stepped on the starter: “Lead on, Miss 
Ailing. We can do no better than follow in your 
footsteps.” 

Nell and Fol were waiting on the porch of the 
parsonage, and so they met no delay there. The 
weather was ideal for such a trip, and, as Miss 
Ailing said, barring accidents, there was no reason 
why they should not reach Forest Lodge on Lake 
Towako in time for lunch. 

Aunt Emma was an excellent driver, and the 
handsome car covered mile after mile of macadam 
road with a smooth, softly-purring motion that 
was tonic to the action-loving girls. Nell sat 
beside Miss Ailing, and Amy and Jessie occupied 
the roomy tonneau which seemed not in the least 
cluttered by the luggage that had been piled in it. 

“Oh, isn’t this air wonderful?” sighed Jessie, 
happily, after a time. 

“And the scenery!” murmured Amy. “Look 
at that mountain rising straight ahead of us. Did 
you ever see anything more glorious?” 

“There is a bridge at the foot of this hill,” 
Aunt Emma threw over her shoulder. “Wait till 
you see the view from there.” 

For some time they had been traveling straight 



4 8 


THE START 


up into the mountains. The road had been almost 
one steady ascent. Now, however, the road 
dipped sharply, and the car—Aunt Emma rarely 
used any brake but the brake pedal, even on the 
steepest hills—slid downward with dizzy speed. 

“Good gracious, but this is reckless!” Amy 
gasped. 

Just then Jessie suddenly seized her arm in a 
grip that hurt. 

“Amy, look! Look!” she screamed. “Right 
ahead of us! The bridge is down!” 



CHAPTER VII 


THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


“TIT E’LL go into the river!” gasped Nell. 

W “We can never stop!” came from 
Amy. “Oh, what shall we do?” 

“Keep your seats, girls. Don’t try to jump 
out,” came crisply from Miss Ailing. “Hold 
tight, all of you!” 

The bridge spanning a small river at the foot 
of the hill had collapsed, leaving an unprotected 
embankment and a four-foot drop to the water 
below. At the rate of speed at which the car was 
going, it seemed as though nothing short of a 
miracle could prevent a tragedy. 

The girls clutched each other frantically, and 
Miss Ailing’s fingers tightened on the wheel. 
With swift presence of mind the lady swerved 
the big car from the road, driving it into the 
woods, crashing recklessly through bushes and 
undergrowth. They had missed the drop to the 
river by the narrowest of margins. 

Behind them they heard Darry cry out, heard 
another car crash through the bushes. Their own 
car, still commanded resolutely by Miss Ailing, 

49 


50 


THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


bumped along for several yards, careening drunk- 
enly over boulders and bushes in its path, bringing 
up finally in about a foot of water and soft oozing 
mud. They had met the stream again where it 
changed its course and wandered through the 
forest. 

Amy released her tense grip upon Jessie’s arm 
and straightened up. From the front seat there 
came a sound between a sob and a laugh. The 
author of the sound was Nell. Miss Ailing her¬ 
self seemed not in the least perturbed. 

“Nasty business,” she said disgustedly, as she 
eased herself from behind the wheel and felt for 
a footing in the wet grass. “Might know I would 
end up in a mud hole like this. Well, I guess 
there is nothing for it but for us all to get out and 
push. Give you girls an appetite for lunch,” she 
added, with a chuckle. 

“Just now I feel as though I would never be 
able to eat again,” remarked Nell, the usually 
calm and collected. 

They heard the boys calling to them and the 
next moment Burd, Darry and Fol appeared, 
looking extremely anxious. 

“Why the lengthy faces?” cried Amy. “You 
needn’t look as if we had already shuffled off this 
mortal coil. Cheer up, boys, there is lots of kick 
in us yet.” 

“What shocking slang,” reproved Jessie, with 



THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


51 


a chuckle. “And just when you should be making 
a good impression upon Miss Ailing, and every¬ 
thing.” 

“My dear,” spoke up Aunt Emma absently, “if 
I never had anything worse than slang to worry 
about, I should be a very lucky woman. This car! 
Now I ask you! Just look at it! Sunk a foot 
deep in mud and water!” 

“It is a rather sorry-looking spectacle,” agreed 
Burd, adding with a grin: “But it would be look¬ 
ing a heap worse if it had gone over that embank¬ 
ment.” 

“So should we,” replied Jessie, with a forced 
laugh. 

“The appearance of none of us is likely to be 
improved at once,” Miss Ailing informed him, 
with a merry twinkle in her eyes. “You will prob¬ 
ably be liberally spattered with mud—and bad 
temper—before we get this car on the state high¬ 
way again. We’ll have to ford the river.” 

“Ford the river!” repeated Jessie, wonder- 
ingly. “Is it shallow enough for that?” 

“That remains for us to find out,” returned 
Miss Ailing. “I believe there is a comparatively 
shallow place a little further on through the 
woods, though.” 

“Get a car through this jungle!” groaned 
Darry. “From where I sit it looks as impene¬ 
trable as an African forest.” 



52 


THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


“Well, would you rather sit here and look at 
each other—or go back home?” asked Miss 
Ailing, and at this suggestion, which smacked of 
a threat, the Radio Girls were stirred to sudden 
action. 

“I should say we don’t want to go home!” 
said Jessie, stoutly. “We are going to ford this 
river if there is a place where it is less than four 
feet deep. Tell us what to do, Miss Ailing, and 
we will do it.” 

Aunt Emma looked at her approvingly. 

“Good!” she said. “That is the kind of talk 
I like.” 

“The first thing to do is to get this car backed 
out of the mud, I guess,” suggested Nell, thought¬ 
fully, and Aunt Emma nodded briskly. 

“Right you are,” she said. “Bring up the 
roadster, Darry. And you two boys,” turning to 
Burd and Fol, “can help me get some rope from 
the car. The rest of you,” she added to the girls, 
“will have to push!” 

Darry brought up the little roadster, puffing 
and snorting, to within a few feet of the big car. 
By this time Burd and Fol had succeeded in find¬ 
ing a piece of good stout rope under the back 
seat of the touring car. It took them only a 
short time, working together, to fasten the big 
car securely to the little one. 

“Puts your little bus on its metal, sure enough, 



THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


53 


Darry,” Burd remarked. “It will have to pull 
some to get this big jumbo free.” 

“Huh!” cried Aunt Emma, hopping nimbly 
into the big car and seizing the wheel with de¬ 
termination, “this big jumbo, as you call it, has a 
mighty fine engine. I reckon the strain won’t 
come altogether on Darry’s roadster.” 

But the undertaking, simple as it had seemed 
in the beginning, assumed gigantic proportions as 
the work progressed. The big car, in reverse, 
snorted and roared and puffed—and that was all. 
The wheels could get no purchase in the slimy 
mud. They slid and skidded and accomplished 
nothing. 

The little roadster, doing its gallant best, was 
at a disadvantage also, for the ground was wet 
and slippery, being sodden because of a recent 
storm. Also, the shore sloped sharply down to 
the edge of the stream, so that the roadster was 
trying to carry its heavy load up grade. 

The girls and boys put their shoulders to the 
car and pushed with all their might, but still it 
would not budge. 

“Well, I guess we are doomed to spend the 
rest of our natural lives in this spot,” said Amy, 
at last, stopping to wipe the perspiration from 
her brow. “In the last ten minutes we have not 
moved the fraction of an inch. Startling speed.” 

“I have an idea,” cried Jessie, suddenly, as the 



54 


THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


rest stopped for a moment’s breathing spell. 
“Why can’t we get that big log over there and 
put it in front of the wheels of the roadster. 
That would keep the car from slipping backward, 
anyway.” 

“Might try it,” agreed Burd, grudgingly. “But 
I don’t suppose it will do much good. What we 
need is a team of good farm horses,” he added 
ruefully. 

However, Jessie’s idea of the log did work sur¬ 
prisingly well. It not only prevented the road¬ 
ster from slipping, but gave it something to push 
against when starting in reverse. 

“Now, all together!” cried Jessie, as she once 
more leaned all her weight against the car. “It 
will have to come this time. One, two, three— 
go!” 

There was the staccato roar of the engine, and 
with all their strength Jessie and Amy and Nell 
and the two boys, leaned against the car. 

The roadster, insured against slipping by the 
log, pulled the rope taut. Slowly, but steadily 
and surely, the big car crept backward. The mud 
and slime loosed its hold upon the wheels. A 
moment more, and the big machine had reached 
solid ground. The wheels dug savagely into it, 
sending the car backward with such force that 
Miss Ailing was forced to bear down heavily 



THE WRECKED BRIDGE 


55 


upon the brake to prevent a smash with Darry’s 
car. 

“Hooray, the day is saved!” shouted Burd. 
Then he added, with a grin, as he looked at 
Jessie: “And it was Jessie’s log that saved it.” 

“Who cares whose log it was—we’re out! 
That’s the big thing!” returned Jessie. 

“Sure thing, we’re out!” cried Amy. “Three 
cheers, boys and girls! One—two—three-” 

The cheers were given, Miss Ailing adding her 
voice to the six more youthful, and more vocif¬ 
erous, ones. 




CHAPTER VIII 


RISKY BUSINESS 

“ A ND now to cross the river!” said Amy. 

“Out of the frying pan into the fire,” 
laughed Nell. “We just succeed in get¬ 
ting out of the river, and we immediately make 
plans for getting into it again.” 

“Does seem rather foolish, doesn’t it?” agreed 
Jessie. “However, w^e can only hope that the 
river bottom isn’t mud all the way.” 

“It is not,” Miss Ailing assured her, as the 
boys unfastened the rope that bound the two 
cars together. “As the stream becomes more 
shallow the river bed becomes more pebbly. I 
really think we won’t have any trouble getting 
across.” 

The knots in the rope that had bound the two 
cars together had been drawn taut by the strain 
upon them and the unfastening of the knots re¬ 
quired time and patience. Miss Ailing insisted 
that the rope should not be cut. 

“We never can tell when we may need the rope 
again,” she reminded them. “Better spend a little 
56 


RISKY BUSINESS 


5 7 


extra time just now than lose a good deal later 
on.” 

At last the final knot was untied, the rope 
stowed away in the tonneau awaiting the next 
emergency, and they were ready for the start. 
In the meantime Darry had gone back and posted 
a warning on the road leading to the broken 
bridge. 

“Where do we go from here, boys—or rather, 
Aunt Em?” queried Burd, as the boys climbed 
back into the roadster. “We let you take the 
lead before, and I suppose we shall have to again. 
Though I don’t know whether we should,” he 
added judicially, “after the place you led us to.” 

“Better here than into the river,” retorted 
Miss Ailing, and stepped on the starter. 

It was necessary for them to proceed at a 
snail’s pace, for, though there were traces of an 
old wagon road following the banks of the stream 
at this point, the woodland was dense with vines 
and undergrowth, and the road was fairly over¬ 
grown with rank grass and bushes. 

It seemed an endless time to the impatient girls 
before Miss Ailing stopped the car and, pointing 
out toward the stream, declared that she was 
confident they would be able to cross it at that 
point. 

They got out to have a closer look at the water, 
and Darry, having stopped his car a few feet 



58 RISKY BUSINESS 

behind them, joined them with Fol and Burd. 

“All set for the big act?” asked Darry, and 
Miss Ailing nodded thoughtfully. They had 
reached the water, and at the point where the 
stream encroached upon the shore it was only a 
few inches deep. Also, the bottom was, as Miss 
Ailing had prophesied, hard and dotted with 
small boulders and rocks. 

“Pretty rough going, but a good sight better 
than mud, at that,” was Fol’s verdict. “I vote 
we get started.” 

“But how do you know the stream is fordable 
at this point?” asked Darry. 

Miss Ailing had started back toward the cars, 
evidently intent upon following Fol’s suggestion 
without delay, but at Darry’s question she turned 
and looked at him squarely. 

“My dear boy, I don’t know,” she told him. 
“The world is full of gambles. This is one of 
them.” 

“I don’t want to gamble,” wailed Amy, as 
they followed Aunt Emma. “I only want to live. 
Jessie, I give you my word I feel ten perfectly 
good years of my life slipping away.” 

“I have heard that people actually do die of 
fright sometimes,” said Jessie, cheerfully, and 
Amy shot her a reproachful glance. 

“Mean old thing,” she said. “I don’t believe 
you are frightened in the least, Jessie Norwood.” 



RISKY BUSINESS 


59 


“Why should I be?” returned Jessie, with a 
laugh. “It isn’t as though we hadn’t been close 
to drowning before. Barry’s yacht, the Mari¬ 
gold, for instance.” 

“Well, just because we nearly drowned once 
isn’t to say that I ought to enjoy it the second 
time,” grumbled Amy. The next moment she 
gripped Jessie’s arm. Miss Ailing had turned the 
car and had headed it straight toward the river. 

“Here goes,” sang out Nell. “Hold your hats, 
everybody!” 

The water swished about the wheels as the car 
pushed forward, and Amy’s grip upon her chum 
tightened. 

“In just about a minute we are due to stumble 
into a hole,” she said, and Jessie giggled. 

“Cars don’t stumble,” she said. “They plunge. 
If you are not careful I will tell Miss Seymour 
on you.” 

“O-oh, there we go!” gasped Amy, shutting her 
eyes as the water swished up higher about the 
wheels. “Let me know when it reaches my chin. 
I shan’t die without a struggle.” 

“Silly, open your eyes,” laughed Jessie. “If 
you think you can drown in two feet of water, go 
ahead.” 

Luckily for them, the opposite shore was not 
steep, and the big car took the ascent with ease. 
Miss Ailing stopped the car long enough to make 



6o 


RISKY BUSINESS 


sure that the boys were following them safely, 
then turned about and headed back through the 
woods toward the roadway. 

They were again on an old road running 
through the woods, but it was one seldom used and 
was filled with stumps and creeping vines, and 
they were once more forced to proceed at a 
crawl. But with the river successfully crossed, 
the girls did not chafe so much at the slow pace 
and were pleasantly surprised when at last the 
highway appeared through the trees. 

Once upon this highway, they waited for the 
roadster to catch up to them. Somebody sug¬ 
gested that they have lunch before they went any 
further. The broken bridge had delayed them 
more than they realized, and Darry found upon 
consulting his watch that it was long past lunch 
time. 

Miss Ailing, however, insisted that they con¬ 
tinue on for a few miles in an attempt to make 
up the time they had lost. 

‘‘We have a long way to go yet,” she reminded 
them. “And the last part of the trip is by far the 
harder. We turn off from the main highway sev¬ 
eral miles away from Forest Lodge, and the lake 
road is steep and rocky. I have no notion,” she 
ended decidedly, “of taking that road after dark.” 

The young folks reluctantly consented to go on 
although the basket lunch which Alma, the Nor- 



RISKY BUSINESS 


61 


wood’s cook, had packed with dainties, was the 
cause of much yearning speculation on the part 
of the girls and boys. The lunch was one Alma 
had insisted on their taking along, saying there 
was no telling what a motor car might do or 
when it would get them to their journey’s end. 

The next hour passed uneventfully, and Miss 
Ailing, as though to make up for every second 
of wasted time, burned up mile upon mile of 
smooth road beneath the wheels of her powerful 
car. 

They came at last to a road marked: Detour 
—Road Closed for Repairs. 

Miss Ailing stopped the car so swiftly that the 
girls were thrown forward in their seats. As 
Amy afterward remarked, nothing save the lug¬ 
gage kept her and Jessie from being tossed over 
the heads of the two in front. 

Their chaperone regarded the annoying sign 
with furrowed brow. 

“I know this detour,” she said, with a sigh. 
“It means a half dozen miles out of our way 
on a most disagreeable stretch of road. Now we 
surely will be late reaching Forest Lodge!” 

“Well, if we are going to be late, anyway, we 
might as well eat,” suggested Jessie, and Darry, 
who, with Fol and Burd, had strolled up to in¬ 
spect the sign, seconded the suggestion with ex¬ 
treme heartiness. The others joined in and made 



62 


RISKY BUSINESS 


such a clamor that for the sake of peace their 
chaperone was forced to give in. 

Besides, as she admitted later between bites of 
a chicken sandwich, she had been actually fam¬ 
ished herself. 

After the hamper had been emptied and they 
were on their way once more, the boys and girls 
found out that Aunt Emma had not exaggerated 
when she classed the detour as a most disagree¬ 
able stretch of road. It was all of that, as Burd 
remarked, and “then some.” 

They came at last to a village, a straggling, 
shabby little place with one main street, a shabby 
motion picture theater, and a few uninviting- 
looking stores. 

“This is Gibbonsville, and it marks the end of 
the detour,” said Miss Ailing. “Just beyond 
here we come upon the lake road again.” 

“That is lucky,” said Amy. “One more mile 
of that road, and I shouldn’t have had a tight 
tooth in my head.” Her voice died off vaguely. 
She had started forward in her seat, her gaze 
suddenly fixed and staring. 

“What is it?” cried Jessie. 

“There is that girl! The one who gave me the 
counterfeit bill!” 



CHAPTER IX 


ON THE HUNT 


stop the car, Miss Ailing, please! 1 ’ 

If cried Jessie, on impulse, and automatic¬ 
ally Miss Ailing responded. 

The car slowed to a standstill before the store 
upon the porch of which Amy had seen the strange 
girl. 

“She is gone, worst luck!” cried Amy, as she 
opened the car door and leaped to the ground. 
“Did you see the look she gave me, Jess?” she 
added, as her chum followed her and together 
they approached the store. “Just one long stare, 
and then the disappearing act.” 

“Oh, hush,” cautioned Jessie, as she laid a 
hand upon the crazily-swung screen door at the 
entrance to the store. “She may be just inside, 
and we don’t want her to know we are talking 
about her.” 

But the strange girl was not within, as Jessie 
and Amy soon found out, and a guarded ques¬ 
tioning of the languid storekeeper brought forth 
no information as to her whereabouts. 

There was a door at the rear of the store, and 

63 


64 


ON THE HUNT 


to this Amy ran, opening it and peering out into 
the littered yard. Jessie followed more slowly, 
for she had no desire to arouse either the curiosity 
or the suspicion of the sleepy-eyed storekeeper. 

Back of the small cleared space that served 
for a back yard and which was crammed with 
old packing boxes and rubbish of all kinds, was a 
vegetable garden and beyond that, the woods. 
If the strange girl had fled in this direction there 
would be scant chance of finding her. 

Disappointed, the girls turned away and Jessie 
stopped to buy a box of crackers and some sorry- 
looking candy from the man behind the counter, 
who seemed as if about to be shocked into wake¬ 
fulness by their peculiar actions. 

“There was a stairway going up from the back 
of that store. I saw it,” Amy said in a low tone 
to her chum, as they returned to their curious 
companions. “If that isn’t the way that girl dis¬ 
appeared, then I am no good as a detective.” 

“We could hardly have gone up those stairs 
without being arrested for housebreaking,” Jessie 
argued reasonably, but Amy shook her head. 

“I would be almost willing to risk spending a 
night in the county jail for the pleasure of talking 
to that girl again,” she said. 

Nell and the three boys greeted them with 
curious questions when they returned and listened 
with interest when they told of their fruitless 



ON THE HUNT 


65 


search for the girl who had passed the counterfeit 
bill 

Darry was obviously excited and upset, and 
asked them so many questions that Amy finally 
snapped out at him with: 

“For goodness' sake, Darry, we have told you 
all we know about four times over. Now, if you 
want to find out anything else, you will have to 
turn sleuth yourself.” 

U I intend to,” retorted Darry, with decision 
adding, as he turned toward the store: “Excuse me 
for a few minutes, folks. I have a consuming 
curiosity to talk with the owner of this place.” 

The girls and boys looked after him until he 
had disappeared within the store, then exchanged 
curious glances. 

“Darry sure seems all ‘het up’ over this girl,” 
remarked Burd, with a chuckle. “Never knew 
him to take so much interest in a stranger before.” 

“Maybe he is in with the gang of counter¬ 
feiters,” suggested Fol, grinning, “and is afraid 
this mysterious young thing may give him away.” 

“Here comes Darry now. Let him speak for 
himself,” said Amy. 

But Darry seemed to have no intention of 
speaking for himself or for any one else. He 
looked as black as a thundercloud as he flung 
down the steps, and had hardly a word to say 
in answer to their eager questions. 



66 


ON THE HUNT 


“I found out a good many things that don’t 
help me any,” he said, taking Burd and Fol by 
the arm and heading them back toward the road¬ 
ster. “Let’s get started. Something tells me we 
are wasting more time than is necessary.” 

The only one who agreed with him was Miss 
Ailing. Mildly interested in the account of the 
counterfeit bill and the girl who had passed it, 
Aunt Emma was much more vitally concerned 
with the passage of time and that stretch of moun¬ 
tain road that they would have to cover at the 
end of their journey. 

So as Darry herded the boys into the roadster 
she stepped on the starter and Jessie and Amy 
had no alternative but to climb hastily into the 
car before she released the brake and threw in 
the clutch. 

Amy looked regretfully at the blank face of 
the store as they moved away. 

“I have an idea there are just slathers of mys¬ 
tery surrounding that girl, Jess,” she said, in a 
low tone. “I hate to go away and leave it all 
unsolved.” 

“Perhaps we can come back here some day 
before long,” remarked Jessie, absently. Her 
mind was busy with the problem of Darry and 
his strange behavior. “Gibbonsville can’t be such 
a very long drive from Forest Lodge.” 

“Humph, by the time we get back here that 



ON THE HUNT 


67 


girl will have had a dozen chances to escape.” 

“Provided she wants to escape,” said Jessie, 
thoughtfully, and her chum looked at her in sur¬ 
prise. 

“Why, of course she wants to escape! Isn’t 
she a counterfeiter?” 

“I don’t know that and neither do you,” re¬ 
torted Jessie, to the further mystification of her 
friend. 

“But she gave me a counterfeit bill!” Amy 
protested, with exasperation. “You saw her do 
it.” 

“That doesn’t prove that she was dishonest,” 
returned Jessie, earnestly, “any more than it’s 
proof that you are dishonest because you happen 
to have a counterfeit bill in your possession.” 

“What are you two girls fighting about?” asked 
Nell, half-turning in her seat. “I feel as though 
I were missing all the fun.” 

“We aren’t fighting,” laughed Amy. “We are 
only calling each other names.” 

“As though that weren’t the same thing!” re¬ 
torted Nell. After a moment she added, curi¬ 
ously: “What do you suppose made Darry act 
the way he did? Does he know that girl, Amy?” 

“Don’t ask me! Did you ever hear of a 
brother telling his sister anything?” returned 
Amy, in an aggrieved tone that betrayed the fact 
that she, like Jessie, had attempted to “pump” 



68 


ON THE HUNT 


Darry on the subject of the strange girl and 
failed. “I suppose, like Belle Ringold, he thinks 
me a mere child and not worthy of his confi¬ 
dences,” she added flippantly. 

As they climbed farther up into the hills and 
the scenery became wilder and more picturesque, 
Miss Ailing became expansive, recounting stories 
of people who lived in that locality and telling 
amusing anecdotes of her own experiences that 
kept the girls in gales of merriment. 

It seemed only a short time to them before they 
turned off the main highway and entered the rough 
and narrow mountain road. In spite of the dis¬ 
comfort of that last part of the journey, the girls 
thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Aunt Emma, intent upon her driving, relapsed 
once more into silence. Indeed, there were some 
spots along that road where she needed every 
atom of skill she possessed. At one point the 
narrow road hugged close to the side of the 
mountain while to the left of them the ground 
dropped sharply downward, disclosing a ravine 
some hundred feet in depth. 

“Good it isn’t raining,” said Amy, as the car 
crawled cautiously along the perilous strip of 
road. “One skid, and we w r ould be but a dim, 
faint memory. Look behind you, will you, Jess, 
dear, and see if the boys are still right side up?” 



ON THE HUNT 


69 


Jessie obeyed and reported that Darry was 
being cautious for once in his life. 

At last they descended from the narrow road 
to one that led straight through the heart of the 
forest. Ahead of them through the trees the 
girls presently caught a glimpse of rippling water. 

“Lake Towako,” announced Nell, joyfully. 
“Doesn’t it look pretty?” 

“It is pretty,” said Miss Ailing, with convic¬ 
tion. “And my lodge commands a view of the 
prettiest part of it. There is the house to the 
right of us. Thank fortune we reached it before 
dark.” 

The girls saw a long, low, rambling building 
with many windows and an air of rusticity that 
was delightfully in keeping with the surround¬ 
ings. 

The front windows commanded a full view of 
the lake, which was charming with its irregular 
shore line and picturesque, verdure-clad islands. 

A small dock jutted out into the w^ater, and 
close by were racks bearing several bright-colored 
canoes. Beside the dock, bobbing gently on the 
serene water, were two rowboats. 

“I can see where we don’t spend much time on 
land,” said Amy, as Miss Ailing turned in back 
of the lodge and silenced the motor. “I feel the 
call of those canoes already.” 

“Lake Towako will be here to-morrow, and so 



70 


ON THE HUNT 


will the canoes,” Aunt Emma reminded her, 
smiling. “I imagine we shall have enough to do 
to-night just to put the rooms in order. I wired 
Phrosy to come down here, but the deserted 
condition of the house leads me to believe that 
Phrosy has failed me.” 

“Who is Phrosy?” Jessie asked, but at that 
moment the door at the rear of the house opened 
and the entire breadth of the doorway was blocked 
by a towering black figure. 

“Phrosy, why didn’t you come out to meet us?” 
asked her mistress, severely. “I thought you had 
not come.” 

“Ah begs yo’ pardon, Miss Ailing, I sho* does,” 
said the big black woman in a rich and mellow 
voice. “But Ah done think you was de ghosts 
fo’ sure.” 

“Ghosts!” cried the girls, and Phrosy turned 
her solemn visage upon them. 

“Dey comes f’om dat swamp,” she said, and 
pointed with a shaking finger. “Dey does, as sho’ 
as Ah lives.” 



CHAPTER X 


GHOSTS 

“^TONSENSE, Phrosy, what a ridiculous 

HW thing to say.” 

Miss Ailing’s tone was sharp as she 
pushed past the colored woman into the house. 

“But, Miss Emma, I done tell yo’ Ah knows 
what Ah’m talkin’ about,” persisted Phrosy. 
“ ’Taint no ’magination. Ah done heered ’em 
screechin’.” 

“Well, suppose you light a lamp or two,” Miss 
Ailing suggested, adding dryly: “Ghosts don’t 
like light, you know. Probably they will wait till 
we go to bed to bother us.” 

Phrosy groaned and the girls giggled nervously. 

“Den I don’t nebber go to bed no mo’e, Miss 
Emma,” said the colored woman, while she went 
about lighting the rooms to a mellow cheerful¬ 
ness. 

“You could take a lamp to bed with you, 
Phrosy,” suggested Amy. 

“Wouldn’t take dose ghosts more’n one second 
to put out dat light, li’l missy. An’ den where’d 
Ah be?” she said darkly. 

71 


72 


GHOSTS 


“What is this we hear about ghosts?” asked 
a laughing, masculine voice from the doorway, and 
the girls turned gleefully to greet the boys. 

“Come on in, do,” cried Jessie. “There is one 
attraction here that we didn’t bargain on. Phrosy 
says there are ghosts in the swamp.” 

Miss Ailing, who had been putting lamps in 
the other rooms, returned at that moment and 
confronted the black woman. 

“Still talking ridiculous nonsense, are you, 
Phrosy?” she said severely. “Well, let me remind 
you that ghosts are not good to eat, and we are 
all very hungry after a long ride. I hope you 
followed my instructions and laid in a good stock 
of eatables.” 

“I done follow yo’ instructions, Miss Emma,” 
grumbled the black woman, as she moved toward 
the small lean-to that served for a kitchen. “I 
mos’ always tries to do my duty, but Ah’s goin’ 
away f’om here fust thing in de mo’nin’ sho’ as 
mah name am Euphrosyne Black. Ah kin stand 
mos’ anything, but Ah caint stand fo’ ghosts.” 

“Phrosy, what is that you say?” cried Miss 
Ailing, in a tone that brought the big black woman 
up short. “You don’t mean to tell me you actually 
intend to leave here in the morning?” 

“Yas’m, Ah sho’ does,” said Phrosy, firmly. 
“Ah stayed here las’ night an’ Ah gives you mah 



GHOSTS 


73 


word, Miss Emma, Ah nebber done close mah 
eyes.” 

“Come here to me, Euphrosyne Black,” com¬ 
manded Miss Ailing, in a tone that proved her 
determined to get at the root of this nonsense. 
“What was it you heard last night, or thought 
you heard?” 

“Ah done hear it wiv mah own ears, Miss 
Emma,” said Phrosy, her voice quivering with 
suppressed emotion and her eyes rolling till there 
was scarcely anything visible but the white eye¬ 
ball. “A screechin’ an’ a moanin’ an’ a wailin’ 
like all de ghostes in de world was ober by dat 
swamp. It done make mah hair stand clear on 
end, Miss Emma. Ah’m tellin’ you de truf.” 

“What did you do then?” asked Jessie. 

“I bet I can tell you what she did,” interrupted 
Burd, with a grin. “I bet she just took down one 
of these guns I see hanging on the walls and went 
gunning for the ghosts.” 

“Ah would need mo’ dan a gun to kill a ghost, 
yassuh,” said Phrosy, earnestly, and once more 
Miss Ailing broke in impatiently. 

“I suppose what you actually did was to put 
your head under the covers and shiver for the 
rest of the night,” she said, and Phrosy nodded 
her head and rolled her eyes in admiration of this 
remarkable logic. 

“Yas’m, dat’s jest what Ah did. But Ah don’t 



74 


GHOSTS 


expects to do it no mo’e,” she added, with a 
return to stubbornness. “Sho as de mo’nin’ comes, 
Ah done take de fust boat what leaves dis place.” 

“Phrosy, I do hope you won’t be so foolish and 
unkind,” said Miss Ailing, resorting to argument 
and cajolery. “You know there are no such things 
as ghosts. And have you stopped to think how 
I could get along without you?” 

“Ah’s sho sorry, Miss Emma, but dis place 
ain’t gwine see me no mo’e after de mo’nin’. If 
dat ghost stays, Ah gits.” 

Regretful, but obviously determined, Phrosy 
stalked off into the kitchen, having enjoyed the ad¬ 
vantage of the last word. 

The young folks exchanged amused glances, 
then looked at Aunt Emma. Her face was a 
study of conflicting emotions, but the most dom¬ 
inant among them seemed to be an intense irri¬ 
tation. 

“That is what you have to suffer from being 
partial to black servants,” she said, in a voice 
lowered so that it might not reach the ears of 
Euphrosyne Black. “They are so superstitious 
they carry their ghosts along with them. I don’t 
know how I will ever manage if Phrosy leaves 
me. 

“Where is this swamp where the ghosts live?” 
asked Amy. 

“There is a swamp over there beyond the lake,” 



GHOSTS 


75 


responded Aunt Emma, waving her hand in an 
easterly direction. “It is a miserable, dreary place 
and is avoided by every one in the locality. I 
have heard that it can be crossed if one knows 
how to find the solid ground, but unless my life 
depended upon it I wouldn’t care to try it my¬ 
self.” 

“Dreary, you say, and deserted,” murmured 
Amy, adding with an irrepressible chuckle: “Just 
the ideal spot for a ghost. I think I will have 
to visit this swamp before long.” 

“I think you had better be very careful how 
you visit in that neighborhood,” retorted Miss 
Ailing, briskly. “More than one person has gone 
to the swamp never to return.” 

“Oh, how thrilling,” cried Amy. “That ex¬ 
plains Phrosy’s ghosts, doesn’t it? Maybe she 
didn’t imagine those noises after all.” 

“Good gracious, Amy, I wish you would stop,” 
said Nell, with a shiver. “I declare, I feel creepy 
already.” 

“No wonder—listening to Phrosy’s wild sto¬ 
ries,” said Miss Ailing. “Suppose we change the 
subject. For instance, how do you like my lodge, 
now that you are here?” 

The change of subject was a fortunate one, 
and it was not long before Phrosy’s ghosts had 
been forgotten in the delight of inspecting the 
cozv interior of the lodge. 



76 


GHOSTS 


There was a combination living room and 
dining room opening off from the kitchen, and it 
was into this room that Phrosy had ushered them. 
By the light of the oil lamps they could make out 
the picturesque roughness of the raftered ceiling 
and side walls. 

The walls were almost completely covered by 
handsome animal skins and rifles, and at one spot 
over the open fireplace depended the huge antlered 
head of a deer. 

Woven rag rugs covered the rough boards of 
the floor, and at each side of the fireplace was a 
wooden settle. A large table surrounded by cush¬ 
ioned, comfortable chairs completed the furnish¬ 
ings of the room. 

“All the comforts of home,” said Darry, and 
grinned at Aunt Emma. “My, I am glad you 
invited us.” 

“You don’t live here,” retorted the lady. “The 
lodge isn’t big enough to accommodate all of you, 
so I have commandeered a small cabin just back 
of us. It has only two rooms, but as you boys 
will probably spend most of your time here I 
guess the cabin will be large enough for you.” 

“They want to get rid of us! It is a put-up 
job!” complained Burd. “Imagine them giving us 
a two-room cabin and keeping the lodge all to 
themselves.” 

“It is the day of women,” sighed Darry. “We 



GHOSTS 


77 


really should be thankful that they let us live 
at all.” 

Accompanied by the complaints of the boys and 
the flickering light of lanterns the girls inspected 
the rest of their quarters. 

There were three bedrooms and a little closet¬ 
like affair that was Phrosy’s room. The rooms 
were a fair size and contained comfortable beds, 
despite the fact that the walls and floors, like 
those of the living room, were rough and un¬ 
plastered. 

The girls noticed with pleasure—and a feeling 
of relief which they would not acknowledge even 
to each other—that the two rooms assigned to 
them by Miss Ailing were connected by a door. 

“One of us will have to sleep alone,” Nell said 
in a low tone, as they followed Aunt Emma back 
to the living room. “I don’t mind telling you that 
I would rather not.” 

“Why, Nell, don’t tell me Phrosy’s ghosts have 
got you scared,” laughed Amy. “Didn’t you hear 
Aunt Emma say there weren’t no sech animal?” 

However given to superstition Phrosy might 
be, there could be no discount on her ability as a 
cook. The dinner she prepared that night tasted 
like ambrosia and nectar to the famished young 
folks. It was with evident reluctance that the 
boys finally left the table and declared their in¬ 
tention of seeking their own quarters. 



78 


GHOSTS 


Aunt Emma and Phrosy escorted them to the 
cabin while the girls stood in the doorway and 
waved them good-bye. 

“Oh,” said Jessie, turning away and yawning 
wearily, “I never was so tired in my life.” 

“There is only one known remedy for that,” 
commented Amy. “I am glad those beds are 
comfortable.” 

Half an hour later all was quiet at Forest 
Lodge. Even Phrosy had consented to put out 
her light and go to sleep. 

Nothing to break that serene stillness save the 
mysterious night sounds of the forest. Hours 
passed with still nothing to break that silence. 
Then- 

Jessie sat up in bed, her eyes straining wide to 
pierce the darkness, her heart hammering. What 
was it that had waked her? Some sound? Her 
hand flew to her throat to press back the startled 
cry. 

From out of the depths of the woodland it 
came again—a long, low, agonized moan, like the 
cry of a soul in torment. 



CHAPTER XI 


PHROSY 


T REMBLING, Jessie sprang out of bed, 
slipped a negligee about her shoulders, 
and ran noiselessly to the window. 

She stood there shivering. It came again— 
that sound—more eerie, more terrifying than be¬ 
fore. 

The echo had barely died away when there 
was a terrific shriek within the house, and Phrosy, 
scantily clothed and wild-eyed, rushed from her 
room. 

“Dat’s de ghost! Dat’s de ghost!” she chat¬ 
tered, terrified. “I done tell you he was ’roun’ 
dis place! Ah’m gwine leave here in de mo’nin’!” 

“Hush, Phrosy, please,” ordered Miss Ailing. 
She, as well as Amy and Nell, had been awakened 
by the hubub, but she alone had had the presence 
of mind to light a lamp. 

Now, with this illumination to sustain them, 
they gathered in Jessie’s room, Miss Ailing doing 
her utmost to reassure and pacify the terrified 
Phrosy. 

“Ah’m gwine git mah things on dis minute an’ 

79 


8 o 


PHROSY 


go straight away f’om here,” protested the latter 
through chattering teeth. “Ain’t nobody gwine 
hold me here no longer.” 

“Don’t be absurd, Phrosy,” said Aunt Emma, 
in a voice that showed her patience was deserting 
her. “You know very well you can’t leave here 
now. There are no boats running till morning, 
and I am certainly not going to get out the car 
and try the mountain road after dark. Do you 
intend to walk?” 

“No’m, reckon Ah don’t,” returned Phrosy, 
somewhat impressed by this argument but still 
in the grip of panic. “Reckon dere ain’t no gittin’ 
away till to-morrow, but I sho intentions to take 
dat mo’nin’ boat. Ah wouldn’t stay in dis place 
any mo’e nights, no’m, not fo’ a million dollars, 
Ah wouldn’t.” 

“Nobody is likely to offer you that much, any¬ 
way, Phrosy,” retorted Miss Ailing, adding, as 
she turned to Jessie: “Do you know what all this 
is about? I haven’t heard anything.” 

“Neither have I,” said Amy, standing beside 
the shivering Nell. “I am afraid Nell and I 
missed the show.” 

Jessie hesitated. It was evident that she was 
the only one besides the colored woman who had 
heard that agonized moan from the direction 
of the swamp. Subconsciously she had been ex¬ 
pecting to hear it repeated, but no sound had 



PHROSY 


8 l 


greeted her strained attention. If she should tell 
them that Phrosy was not the only one to be 
frightened by that strange and eerie cry, would 
they not perhaps laugh at her, as they were now 
laughing at Phrosy? 

Her hesitation was short-lived, however, for, 
besides the advisability of telling the truth at all 
times, she felt that she owed it to the groaning 
Phrosy to admit that there was something queer 
going on down by the swamp. 

“I heard a noise,” she said. 

The girls and Miss Ailing stared at her in sur¬ 
prise, while even Phrosy stopped groaning long 
enough to bestow upon her a look of awe. 

“Why, Jessie, you didn’t really!” cried Amy, 
delightedly. “What kind of noise?” 

“It was a horrid sound,” said Jessie, slowly. 
“Like a wailing moan-” 

Phrosy let forth another hair-raising shriek and 
began to rock herself to and fro, hands lifted 
beseechingly to heaven. 

“Dat’s de ghost what Ah heard! Dat’s de 
ghost what Ah heard?” she chanted over and 
over, until Miss Ailing was forced to silence her 
and her voice dropped to a wailing monotone. 

The girls were wildly excited and even Miss 
Ailing looked worried. 

“I don’t know what to say,” she confessed at 
last, regarding Jessie seriously. “I had supposed 




82 


PHROSY 


that Phrosy’s imagination was running away with 
her, but if you heard it too, Jessie-” 

“It came twice/’ said Jessie. “And it was after 
the second time that Phrosy yelled-” 

“Oh! What’s that?” 

It was Nell who spoke, and the girls jumped 
nervously. 

“Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord!” 

“Phrosy, be quiet—do!” from Miss Ailing. 
“What was it you heard, Nell?” 

“It was like a whistle—soft and repeated three 
times.” 

“Oh, that was Darry’s call,” broke in Jessie, 
feeling wonderfully relieved. 

“The boys have heard the commotion and have 
come to find out if we are still alive,” suggested 
Amy, as they started toward the door, dragging 
the still-trembling Phrosy with them. 

Though she was sure that no one but the boys 
were behind that door, Jessie waited until she 
heard them speak before opening it. 

As their voices reached her reassuringly she 
flung the door wide, beckoning them eagerly to 
come in. 

The boys looked about them eagerly and with 
undisguised relief as they realized that the girls 
and Miss Ailing—and even black Phrosy—were 
alive and well. 

“You girls shouldn’t scare us like that,” com- 





PHROSY 


83 


plained Burd. “From the noise, we thought a 
lion had been let loose among you, at least .’ 1 

“It was Phrosy who did the screaming,” said 
Jessie. “She thought she heard a ghost.” 

“Ah done heard dat ghost an’ Ah done see 
him wiv mah own eyes,” asserted Phrosy stub¬ 
bornly. “Ah done see dat ghost walkin’ down 
near de swamp plain as Ah sees you all here in 
dis room.” 

The boys started to scoff at this, but when they 
heard that Jessie had heard the moaning cry 
down near the swamp, their incredulity changed 
to wonder and, finally, to alarm. 

“May be some poor fellow down there in need 
of help,” said Darry, and immediately proposed 
that the three boys should investigate the cry. 

The girls were opposed to the idea, and did 
not want the boys to go. But the boys insisted 
and finally had their own way. 

After two hours of fruitless search during 
which the girls sat together, talking in low tones, 
Darry and his companions returned, declaring 
that they had heard and seen nothing to excite 
the least suspicion. 

“If you ask for my private opinion,” said Miss 
Ailing, “it is that we had all better go back to 
bed for the present and talk this thing over in the 
morning. Shoo yourselves back to the cabin, 



84 


PHROSY 


boys, and if you hear any more noises, don’t pay 
any attention to them.” 

After some good-natured grumbling the boys 
did as she suggested. But when, a few minutes 
later, the girls tried to coax Phrosy back to bed, 
they found her adamant in her intention to sit 
up for the rest of the night. 

“Ah’s goin’ to keep dis lamp burnin’ an’ sit 
just where Ah is,” she declared. “An’ in! de 
mo’nin’ Ah’m gwine away f’om here an’ nothin’ 
an’ nobody ain’t nebber gwine git me back, no 
suh, not so long as Ah lives!” 

So they left her there, perforce, and in the 
morning found her sitting in the same place, the 
lamp burned out and her black head bobbing 
upon her breast. 

But everything looks more cheerful in the day¬ 
light and this seemed true even of Phrosy’s ghosts. 
Between them, and using the argument that who¬ 
ever or whatever was down by the swamp had not 
yet attempted to harm them, they finally per¬ 
suaded Phrosy not to desert them just then. How¬ 
ever, her decision to stay was provisional upon 
the behavior of the ghosts. The next time the 
“ha’nts” spoke, Phrosy left. That was certain. 

The first day passed so swiftly in and about the 
lodge that night found the Radio Girls unpre¬ 
pared—and their radio set not yet erected. 

So it happened that the following morning 



PHROSY 


85 


Jessie got them all up early and set them all to 
unpacking the various parts of the set while she 
herself got ready for the hardest part of the 
work, the erecting of the aerial. 

The boys came around, humbly begging to be 
allowed to work, but, except in the assembling 
of the parts, Jessie gently but firmly denied their 
petition. 

“We want to show Miss Ailing that w r e are as 
good sports as she is and really are of some use 
in the out-of-doors,” she said, smiling at the 
chaperone, who was interestedly inspecting the 
various parts of the set. “She wouldn’t believe 
that we erected the set at home practically by 
ourselves.” 

“I will believe it now when I see it done,” said 
Miss Ailing, crisply, but pleasantly. 

“We are the greatest little demonstrators you 
ever saw,” murmured Amy, handling the detector 
with fond care. “Watch us and learn.” 

“They are altogether too sure of themselves, 
these girls,” said Fol, in an injured tone. “I 
guess there is no room for us around here, fel¬ 
lows.” 

“We’ll come in handy when they start to string 
up the aerial,” remarked Darry, in a stage whis¬ 
per. “I reckon they haven’t the least idea how 
they are going to do it.” 

“Trees!” said Jessie, laconically. 



86 


PHROSY 


“Humph! Do you suppose you are going to be 
able to climb into a tree far enough to fasten your 
aerial wire?” 

Jessie squinted calmly up into the giant oak 
whose foliage-weighted branches spread thorn- 
selves above the lodge. 

“As Amy so aptly remarked a few moments 
ago, watch and learn!” she said, and Darry 
walked off in high dudgeon. 

Burd and Fol, feeling sure that the girls’ reso¬ 
lution would weaken as they watched Barry’s de¬ 
parture, lingered expectantly for a few moments. 
Then, as no requests for help were forthcoming, 
they followed Darry, declaring that they intended 
to linger no longer in a spot where their room was 
so evidently preferred to their company. 

Left alone, the girls worked like beavers, set¬ 
ting up, assembling, and getting ready for the 
hardest part of all, the erection of the aerial. 

At last all the work was done that could be 
done upon the ground, and the girls turned to 
the tree from which they intended to string their 
aerial. It was a convenient distance from the 
house, and the wires, reaching from the top of 
the tall tree to the lodge, should be able to record 
messages from a considerable distance. 

Miss Ailing, standing at the foot of the tree, 
watched the ascent with an ever-increasing inter¬ 
est. She was an extremely athletic person her- 



PHROSY 


87 

self, and yet she doubted if she would have had 
the nerve to climb to the top of that tree, even 
in the service of radio. Now and then she cheered 
them on with shouted words of encouragement. 
By the time they were two-thirds of the way to¬ 
ward their goal she was fairly prancing with 
excitement. 

The girls, intent on their work, heard her only 
vaguely and saw her not at all. As a matter of 
fact, they were not particularly anxious to look 
down. It was easier—and safer—to look up, for 
something told them they had gone a considerable 
distance from the ground. 

Jessie, in the lead, her tool kit slung over one 
shoulder, climbed laboriously into a crotch of the 
tree, holding tightly to the coil of wire. With 
her free hand she beckoned to Amy, who, from 
various scrabbling sounds, she knew to be directly 
beneath her. 

“Shouldn’t wonder if this would do all right,” 
she called. “Think we are high enough?” 

“I think we are far too high,” Amy’s voice 
answered her. “Don’t move, Jess. I am coming 
up!” 

The next moment a leg was flung over the 
branch and Amy took her place on the precarious 
perch beside Jessie. The two chums looked at 
each other and laughed. 

“Nell is making heavy weather of it,” re- 



88 


PHROSY 


marked Amy. She moved closer to Jessie, who 
was already busy with the wire. “I passed her 
on the way up, and she was wedged tight between 
two branches. She said there was one good thing 
about it, anyway. There was no possible danger 
of her falling. But I could tell by her face that 
she wasn’t exactly enjoying herself. Now what 
first, Jess?” 

“Help me fasten this thing,” returned Jessie. 
“I have to hold on with one hand which leaves 
me only one to work with and I have need of at 
least six.” 

“I suppose my one wouldn’t do you any good 
then,” said Amy, giggling. “But such as it is 
it is at your service.” 

At that moment Nell called to them, and they 
looked around to find her peering at them from 
below. 

“Any room on that perch?” she asked. “Looks 
kind of precarious to me.” 

“Climb up on the other side, can’t you?” sug¬ 
gested Jessie. “You will do more good there. 
And, Nell dear, please hurry. We need an extra 
hand badly.” 

At last it was done. One end of the wire was 
fastened neatly and securely to the tree while 
the other dangled earthward, ready for attach¬ 
ment to the roof of the lodge. 

They started downward cautiously, aware that 



PHROSY 


the descent was more difficult and perilous than 
the upward climb. Slipping, scrambling, clinging 
when the footing failed them, inch by inch, foot 
by foot, they made their way downward. 

Suddenly something happened. Jessie cried out 
sharply. Her foot had slipped. Her hand, flung 
frantically out, grasped nothing. A sea of green 
leaves and waving branches flew up to meet her. 
She struck upon something heavily, clutched it, 
hung there gasping, eyes closed- 




CHAPTER XII 


QUEER ACTIONS 

I T was Amy’s voice, frantic, terrified, that 
roused Jessie to a more immediate sense of 
her great peril. Her foot had caught in a 
crotch of a branch as she fell, and by this she 
hung, head downward, hands clasped desperately 
about the branch that had stopped her descent. 
In that position she could neither let herself down 
nor draw herself up. And she was still a danger¬ 
ous distance from the ground. 

Amy had climbed up to her, had taken in the 
situation in one startled glance. Nell, who had 
been following Jessie, clung to a branch, staring 
down, weak and sick with fright. 

“Hang on, Jess, honey,” begged Amy. “We 
will get you out all right. Hold on for just 
another minute.” 

Jessie held on desperately while Amy tugged 
at her foot, and Nell, mastering her fright, de¬ 
scended slowly. Miss Ailing was calling out 
advice and commands. A horrible dizziness was 
engulfing Jessie. She felt as though all the blood 
in her body was pounding in her ears. The sight 

90 


QUEER ACTIONS 


91 


of the ground so far below set her senses reeling, 
made her fingers feel like putty. 

“Are you holding hard?” she heard Amy’s 
voice asking as though from a long distance. “I 
have your foot loose, Jess and Nell is waiting 
below to catch you and let you down easy. Can 
you hold on?” 

Jessie must have said yes, though she never 
afterward remembered having done so, for the 
next moment she felt her foot released, felt her¬ 
self swing downward, felt Nell catch her in one 
strong young arm and hold her tight against the 
tree the while Nell’s voice urged frantically: 

“There, put your foot on that branch—to the 
right—to the right!” 

She felt it at last—something solid under her 
foot! She clung there, fighting the dizziness that 
swept over her again, thankful for Nell’s support¬ 
ing arm. 

The vertigo lasted for only a moment, and with 
the help of the girls she managed somehow to 
make the rest of that descent and reach the 
ground. There Miss Ailing caught her in her 
arms and half led, half carried her into the lodge. 

Phrosy, all whites-of-eyes and sympathy, made 
her a cup of tea and fussed over her until Jessie 
declared she would begin to think herself an 
invalid before long, instead of a perfectly healthy 
outdoor girl who had met with a simple accident. 



92 


QUEER ACTIONS 


“If that was simple, I hope I never meet any¬ 
thing complex!” was Amy’s comment. 

In spite of the dreadful fright and shaking up 
they had had, the girls insisted upon finishing the 
work of installing the radio before the boys 
returned. 

“For, after all our boasting, they must never 
know how near I came to grief,” was Jessie’s 
decision, and in this both Amy and Nell heartily 
agreed with her. It was easy to win Miss Ailing 
and Phrosy over to their side, and it was solemnly 
vowed that absolute silence should be kept con¬ 
cerning the accident. 

They worked feverishly after that, hoping to 
make up for lost time. The dangling aerial wires 
were attached to the roof of the lodge. Amy and 
Nell took charge of this, laying down the law that 
Jessie was to do no more climbing that day. 
Jessie herself adjusted the lead-in wire. 

At last all was in readiness and the girls sat 
down to “listen in” with a pride and pleasure that 
more than paid them for their exertion. 

Aunt Emma’s interest was also flattering, 
although she had a few sharp things to say about 
the inconvenience of using head phones. 

They were thoroughly enjoying themselves 
when the boys came back, declaring that they had 
had a most delightful hike through the woods. 
They were really surprised to find the set erected 



QUEER ACTIONS 


93 


and in working order in such a short time, and 
very heartily said so. In fact, everything was 
going splendidly when Darry made the announce¬ 
ment that he and the other boys intended to take 
a short run to Gibbbonsville. 

“But, when?” asked Amy, staring at him. 

“Why, right away. It won’t take long,” 
returned Darry, at which his sister quite pointedly 
turned her back on him. 

“You may all go when you like and stay as 
long as you please,” she informed him icily. 

A few minutes later the girls stood watching 
Darry’s car as it disappeared in a cloud of dust 
down the road. 

“I reckon I know why Darry has gone to 
Gibbonsville,” said Jessie, slowly. “He has gone 
to see that girl!” 

“You mean that girl who passed the bad five- 
dollar bill on me?” demanded Amy. 

“Yes.” 

“But why should he go to see her?” 

“I don’t know. It is certainly a mystery,” 
answered Jessie, and turned away. Somehow, she 
felt that she did not care just then to say more. 
She went in and set to work to adjust the radio 
set so that they might listen in with greater ease 
and clearness. She had found that she could 
always “lose herself” when working over the 
radio. 



94 


QUEER ACTIONS 


“I think it is mean of the boys to desert us,” 
said Amy, some time later, as she got into her 
snug-fitting black bathing suit and pulled a rub¬ 
ber cap over her heavy hair. ‘‘There! how do 
I look?” she added, turning slowly around so 
that Jessie and Nell might admire the effect. 

“Stunning. You always do,” answered Nell, as 
she laced up her bathing shoes. “But I am 
wondering how long that suit will last in the 
water.” 

The girls had felt the lure of the cool waters 
of the lake as they had not felt it since their 
arrival. They wanted, as Amy said, “to swim 
and swim and keep on swimming.” 

So now they ran down to the dock, debating 
whether to take out one of the canoes or to swim 
around near the dock. 

“Might as well swim close to home,” said Nell, 
as she stood close to the edge of the dock, hands 
over her head in a diving posture, and regarded 
her reflection in the water. “Then we’ll be on 
hand to keep a lookout for the boys.” 

She leaned a bit too far out over the water and 
lost her balance. Jessie and Amy saw her fall 
forward suddenly and heard her give a little cry 
that was more of astonishment than fear. Then 
the water closed over her. 

The two girls ran forward, laughing, for the 
water at this point was only four or five feet, and 



QUEER ACTIONS 


95 


it was impossible for a swimmer like Nell to 
drown in that depth. 

What they had not seen was this—that, as she 
went down, Nell struck her head upon the edge 
of the dock. They saw only that she had not 
come up. 

“She must be swimming under water,” said 
Jessie, not yet seriously alarmed. “Run around 
to the other side of the dock, Amy.” 

Amy obeyed, and still no sign of Nell. As she 
came running back she saw that Jessie was already 
poised for a dive. There was a splash. Jessie 
disappeared, then rose to the surface, shaking the 
water from her eyes. 

“She—must be—under the dock!” she gasped, 
and disappeared again. 

“Under the dock!” thought Amy, a swift fear 
at her heart. She had heard of people swimming 
around and around under a dock, unable to find 
their way out, drowning because they could not 
come up for air. But this was such a little dock! 
Almost with the thought she also struck the water. 

She came up for air and saw Jessie dragging 
something inert. She caught one glimpse of a 
w r hite face and turned sick with dread. 

Together they got Nell on the dock. 

“She is dead!” sobbed Amy, as they worked 
over her feverishly. “No live person ever looked 
like that!” 



96 


QUEER ACTIONS 


“See that bruise on her forehead?’’ whispered 
Jessie. “Amy, I think, I believe, she was uncon¬ 
scious when she struck the water.” 

The bruise was up close to her hair, swollen 
and turning black. It stood out startlingly in the 
pallor of her face. 

Panic-stricken, Jessie was about to rush to the 
lodge for help and some stimulant from the medi¬ 
cine chest when Amy called to her. 

“She moved! Oh, Jess, come here quick I 
There is color in her face.” 

Jessie returned and sank quickly to her knees, 
taking Nell’s cold, inert hand in both her warm 
ones. 

“Nell, Nell, open your eyes!” she begged. 
“Tell us you are all right!” 

As if that urgent call could not be denied, Nell 
opened weary eyes and looked vaguely about her. 

“What is the matter?” she asked faintly, sitting 
up and putting a hand to her head. “I fell—I 
can’t remember-” 

“Don’t try, dear. It is all right now,” said 
Jessie, soothingly, while the happy tears ran 
down her face. 

“Just rest and don’t worry,” said Amy, sur¬ 
reptitiously wiping the tears from her own eyes. 
“You did give us a terrible scare, Nell.” 

A sharp rumble of thunder broke the stillness 
of the forest, and the girls realized with a shock 




QUEER ACTIONS 


97 


of surprise that the sun had gone under a cloud 
and the sky was overcast 

Nell struggled slowly to get to her feet, the 
girls helping her. She was shivering, either with 
weakness or the sudden chill that had crept into 
the air. The wind had risen and was sighing 
ominously through the trees. 

They supported Nell back toward the lodge, 
but before they reached the shelter of it the sud¬ 
den storm increased in fury. The wind rose to a 
tempest, the lightning flashed vividly, streaking 
in jagged rents across the sky. There came a 
crash of thunder that made them shiver with the 
impact of the noise upon their ears. 

“Our radio!” cried Jessie, suddenly remember¬ 
ing. “We have no lightning arrester. Oh, girls, 
let’s hurry!” 

They needed no urging. Even Nell, alive to 
the danger from the lightning, momentarily for¬ 
got her narrow escape from death. 

They dashed into the lodge, pursued by the 
menacing roar of the elements. They slammed 
the door shut behind them and turned to confront 
Aunt Emma and the shuddering Phrosy. 

“Fo’ de Ian’s sakes, Ah is glad to see you young 
ladies back agin. Ah sho did t’ink dose storm 
debbils done carry yo’ off fo’ fair!” After de¬ 
livering herself of this comment, poor Phrosy was 



98 


QUEER ACTIONS 


sent off into the kitchen by the relentless Miss 
Ailing, there to suffer in silence. 

Jessie and Amy rushed to the radio set, while 
Nell sank into a chair, covering her eyes with 
her hand. 

“What are you going to do?” asked Amy, as 
Jessie produced a pair of scissors. 

“Cut the in-wire!” she said, and, a moment 
later, had suited the action to the word. The 
danger from lightning was past, for that time, at 
least. 

“What is that?” cried Nell, starting nervously 
from her chair. 

There came a terrific flash of lightning, a re¬ 
verberating thunder clap, a crackling as though 
the forest were on fire, a thud and a slithering 
sound as of a heavy body striking the roof. 

“De end of de world am come, it am fo’ sure!” 
shrieked Phrosy, dashing in upon them, her eyes 
rolling wildly. “Ah’m gwine away f’om here! 
Ain’t nobody gwine stop me! Ah’s gwine!” 



CHAPTER XIII 


THE RACE 


N O ONE tried to stop Phrosy in her 
threatened flight. In fact, the impulse 
of them all was toward flight, and they 
followed that impulse. 

“Something fell on the roof!” cried Amy, 
starting to open the door and shrinking back 
against it as another clap of thunder reverberated 
through the forest. 

“Open the door!” cried Jessie, impatiently, as 
she pushed Amy aside. 

“Yes, we had better get outside,” put in Miss 
Ailing, trying to keep calm. “For all w r e know, 
the roof may come down on top of us.” 

The door flew open with a bang and a tre¬ 
mendous gust of wind fairly blew them against 
the opposite wall. 

“What a gale!” gasped Nell. “Well never 
be able to get out there!” 

“I am going!” declared Jessie, and with low¬ 
ered head dashed into the open. The other girls, 
gathering courage from her example, followed, 
99 


100 


THE RACE 


and brought up short at the sight that met their 
eyes. 

A giant tree, half dead at the top, had been 
struck by the lightning and uprooted. In its fall 
the outermost branches had brushed the roof 
of the lodge. 

“Lucky it did not fall across the roof,” said 
Amy, shivering. “That would have meant good¬ 
bye lodge for fair.” 

“Struck pretty close to us, at that,” said Nell. 
“Lucky you cut that in-wire, Jess.” 

“Better get inside again,” said Miss Ailing. 
“We shall be soaked in a moment.” 

For the rain had begun in earnest, coming down 
in a swishing torrent that drove them on a run 
for the shelter of the lodge. And there they 
stayed until the storm blew itself out. 

So quickly did the time pass after the departure 
of the boys for Gibbonsville that it was the second 
day before the girls began to feel anxious about 
them. 

They were just beginning to imagine all kinds 
of dreadful things that might have happened to 
them when Burd and Fol returned, in Darry’s 
roadster, but not with Darry. 

Upon relentless questioning Burd admitted 
that Darry had lingered in Gibbonsville. 

“You see, it was this way,” Burd tried to 
explain, as the girls showered him with questions. 



THE RACE 


IOI 


“We were not able to find out anything satisfac¬ 
tory about this girl of mystery who saddled you 
with an unpassable five-doliar bill, Amy, and so, 
when we got discouraged and said we were coming 
back before we had missed all the fun, Darry 
said we would have to go back without him.” 

“But you shouldn’t have let him do anything so 
perfectly ridiculous!” said Amy, vexed. “There 
were two of you to one. Couldn’t you have made 
him come back with you?” 

Burd chuckled. 

“If you have ever tried to make your brother 
do anything he didn’t want to do, you know how 
easy it is,” he remarked. “I would just about as 
soon try to teach a wild elephant to dance. Noth¬ 
ing doing! When Darry acts like that the one 
thing to do is to give him his head.” 

“But he must have been terribly interested in— 
that girl—to do a thing like this,” said Jessie, 
slowly, and Burd looked at her queerly. He 
seemed about to speak, but changed his mind. 

“If you ask me,” said Fol, “I think he was just 
plain off his head.” 

“And you didn’t catch sight of that awful 
girl?” asked Amy. 

“We didn’t,” replied Burd, with just the faint¬ 
est possible emphasis on the we. 

“Then my five dollars is gone forever unless 
Darry succeeds in getting it back for me!” 



102 


THE RACE 


“I haven’t the least idea it is the five-dollar bill 
Darry is worrying about,” said Burd, significantly, 
and thereafter not all Amy’s bribes or threats 
could bring from him an explanation of the cryptic 
sentence. 

It was some hours later that Burd took Jessie 
by the arm and drew her aside from the others. 

“See here, Jess,” he said. “I don’t like the way 
Darry is acting, at all.” 

“What do you mean?” queried Jessie, all her 
fears of the morning once more active. 

“He hasn’t been like himself-” 

“I have noticed that,” broke in the girl, im¬ 
patiently. “You have something special you want 
to tell me about Darry, Burd. Please don’t keep 
me waiting.” 

Burd hesitated. 

“I am telling you this,” he said, at last, “be¬ 
cause you are level-headed and not apt to go off 
the handle like Amy. Jessie, I have reason to 
believe that Darry saw that girl when we were 
in Gibbonsville.” 

“What makes you think that?” asked Jessie, 
faintly. Suddenly the world seemed all upside 
down. 

“He managed to dodge away from Fol and me 
when we weren’t looking,” Burd answered, stir¬ 
ring up some loose stones with his foot and 
looking extremely uncomfortable. “And later on 




THE RACE 


103 


when we were looking for him we came suddenly 
around a corner and saw him talking with some 
one. His companion dodged out of sight when 
she saw us, but Fol and I saw that it was a girl, 
and, from the description you gave of her, it 
seemed pretty sure that she was the same one you 
and Amy are after.” 

“What did Darry say when he knew you had 
seen him? Did he—explain?” asked Jessie, 
slowly. 

“There is the most peculiar part of it,” Burd 
answered reluctantly. “He not only refused to 
explain but acted as though angry and was un¬ 
pleasant about the whole thing. Accused us of 
trying to spy on him and of several other crimes 
that were farthest from our minds. He even 
went so far as to say that we had ‘spoiled it all.’ ” 

“What did he mean by that?” asked Jessie, 
puzzled and speaking more to herself than to 
Burd. 

“That is what I would give a good deal to find 
out,” returned Burd, ruefully, then adding, with 
a chuckle: “You should have heard him when, 
in an evil moment, Fol asked him for an explana¬ 
tion. Near chewed Fol’s head off.” 

Jessie shook her head slowly. The situation 
was even more mysterious than she had thought 
it, and with each of Burd’s startling revelations 
she became more hopelessly bewildered. 



104 


THE RACE 


“Did he say when he was coming back?” she 
asked, after a long reflective pause. Again Burd 
shook his head. 

“He wouldn’t tell us anything,” he said, adding 
with a frown: “I don’t mind admitting to you 
he got me pretty sore.” 

Jessie smiled slightly and murmured that she 
“didn’t wonder.” 

“I don’t know what we can do about it,” she 
added, after a moment, as they turned and started 
back toward the others. “I am sure Darry has 
good reasons for acting as he does, and when he 
comes to explain everything to us we shall see that 
he could not have acted differently.” 

But in spite of her brave words she was 
troubled, and, partly to get Darry and his strange 
behavior out of her mind and partly to give herself 
something absorbing to do, she suggested that 
they “listen in” on a concert. 

All the rest of that afternoon and evening the 
girls and boys and Miss Ailing spent at the radio. 
Toward evening they had the luck to tune in on 
the airway of the forest ranger station. 

Some one at the station was giving a talk on 
the prevention of forest fires by radio, and they 
listened with interest. 

“I suppose they wouldn’t stage a little forest 
fire for us,” said Amy at the end of the talk, 
removing the phones and rubbing her head where 



THE RACE 


105 


they had pressed. “It would be great fun to see 
one.” 

“It would be more fun not to!” said Burd, 
decidedly. “That station isn’t far from here. 
What do you girls say to taking a run over there, 
sooi*?” 

“We say ‘yes,’ ” was the enthusiastic response 
from all. 

“The sooner the better,” added Jessie. 

Darry came back the next day, but he posi¬ 
tively refused to give any reason for his prolonged 
stay in Gibbonsville. After two or three attempts 
even his sister gave up questioning him, and Amy 
was persistent. 

“Might just as well try to get information from 
a wooden idol,” Amy said disgustedly to Jessie. 
“I think that girl must have thrown a spell over 
him.” 

“Then I should certainly like to remove it,” 
returned Jessie, moodily. “He isn’t one bit like 
the old Darry.” 

“Who isn’t?” 

They turned, startled, to see Darry himself 
looking down at them and laughing. He had 
climbed into the branches of a huge old gnarled 
oak that threw its shade before the lodge and 
now sat dangling his legs in solid comfort. He 
had even taken a book up with him for company. 

“Well, of all things! Reading on a day like 



io6 


THE RACE 


this!” cried Amy. “Can’t you think of anything 
better to do with your time, Darry Drew?” 

“If you could suggest something sufficiently 
enticing,” said Darry, with a grin, “I might be 
lured down from this leafy bower. You don’t 
know how comfortable it is up here, really,” he 
said, with a sigh, as he realized that his peaceful 
solitude must come to an end. 

“Hear the man!” laughed Nell, who had come 
up just in time to hear his last words. “His eager¬ 
ness to be with us is flattering!” 

“Far be it from me to be ungallant to the 
ladies,” said Darry, dropping to the ground and 
bowing low before them. “I am at your service, 
fair ones. Command me!” 

“Hey, don’t be too reckless, Darry,” warned 
Burd, as he and Fol joined the group. “They 
may ask you to repair their radio or start a forest 
fire or something. I know them!” 

“As if we couldn’t take care of our radio by 
ourselves,” said Jessie, scornfully. 

“A little forest fire might furnish some excite¬ 
ment,” added Amy brightly. “We would need 
only a very little one, you know.” 

“And what fun to see the forest rangers at 
work!” exclaimed Nell. 

“Now, what did I tell you?” demanded Burd. 

“I have an idea worth two of that,” cried 
Jessie gayly. “I have been wanting to suggest 



THE RACE 


10 7 


it ever since we came up here. How about a 
canoe race?” 

“Pretty fine,” applauded Fol. “We will take 
three canoes, a girl and a fellow in each boat-” 

“Oh, no! That wouldn’t be any fun,” Jessie 
protested. “My idea was for Nell and Amy and 
me to race you three boys.” 

The boys stared at them for a moment and then 
burst into loud guffaws of amusement. 

“We certainly like your nerve,” remarked 
Burd, indulgently, not annoyed in the least by 
the indignant glances from three pairs of feminine 
eyes. “How much handicap would you like? A 
mile? Or would a half mile do?” 

“You think you are smart, don’t you?” retorted 
Amy. “We will race you fair and square from 
the start, and-” 

“Beat you, too,” finished Jessie, decidedly. 

“All right,” chuckled Darry, heading down 
toward the dock. “Honors are even, and the best 
man—best girl—wins!” 

With much merriment they selected the canoes 
that were to be used in the contest. The girls 
chose the green craft as being the one they were 
most used to and, “just to make the color scheme 
good,” Burd said, the boys chose the crimson. 

After some good-natured squabbling it was 
decided that Jessie and Nell do the paddling while 
Amy should furnish the “ballast.” The latter 





io8 


THE RACE 


yielded to this arrangement only after it had been 
pointed out to her that Nell was stronger than 
she and that Jessie was the most skilful of the 
three in the handling and steering of the boat. 

“I may be an important part of this race,” was 
Amy’s final protest. “But I can’t see it myself.” 

The boys had long since decided that Darry 
and Burd would do the paddling, Fol not having 
had as much experience in the art as had the two 
older boys. 

“We will race from this dock to the big pier,” 
suggested Darry, when all other questions were 
settled. 

They agreed, and at the snappy command 
“Go!” from Darry, started off right gallantly 
for the pier. The pier was the only one of its kind 
along Lake Towako and received the incoming 
excursion steamers from points farther down the 
lake. There was a stream connecting this body 
with Lake Monenset upon which New Melford 
was situated. In this way it would have been 
possible to travel all the way from New Melford 
to Forest Lodge by water—though the girls and 
boys unanimously agreed that the motor trip had 
been much more thrilling. 

Now, as the paddles bit deep into the glassy 
surface of the water, Jessie and Nell put all their 
strength into the stroke. The canoe shot forward 



THE RACE 


109 


swiftly, but, alas, the boys shot ahead more 
swiftly still! 

Before they had gone a hundred yards the boys 
were hopelessly in the lead, and Burd raised a 
victorious paddle to wave at them tauntingly. 

That gesture proved to be his undoing. The 
handle of the paddle, slippery with water, slid 
from his careless grasp and drifted lazily beyond 
his reach. 

“He has lost his paddle! He has lost his 
paddle!” chanted Amy, bouncing up and down in 
the canoe and threatening to upset them at every 
bounce. “Go it, girls; go it! We’ve got ’em at 
our mercy!” 

“I am not so sure of that,” giggled Jessie, but 
she leaned still harder on the paddle and Nell 
responded nobly to the call for “full steam 
ahead.” 

Laughing so they could hardly paddle, the girls 
passed the boys, who were still fishing for the 
paddle. 

As the girls went by, Burd made one more 
grab for it, nearly upsetting the canoe as he did 
so. He caught the paddle, but the effort had half 
turned the canoe about, and by the time it was 
started in the right direction again the girls had 
almost reached the pier. 

The result was a winning of the race with a 
whole boat-length to spare. 



no 


THE RACE 


“Look!” cried Jessie, as the boys, looking a 
little sheepish, came up to them. “Isn’t that a 
steamer coming in?” 

“To be sure it is,” said Nell, with interest. 
“Suppose we wait and see who is on it.” 

“Ah, that is just a stall to get out of giving us 
our revenge,” declared Burd, grinning. “Dare 
you to race us back to the dock.” 

“Perhaps Burd could hang onto his paddle this 
time, if he tried hard,” said Darry, sarcastically. 

But Jessie, with a laugh, shook her head. 

“That wasn’t the bargain,” she reminded them. 
“The course of the race was from dock to pier, 
and we won it.” 

“You shouldn’t have dropped that paddle, 
Burd,” said Fol, with a worried expression. 
“Really you shouldn’t! We shall never hear the 
end of this.” 

“Oh, hush, and let’s watch this boat,” said 
Nell, with an eager eye on the approaching 
steamer. “Looks like a big one, and—just see— 
her decks are crowded with people.” 

“Better keep on this side of the pier and draw 
in a little toward shore,” Darry suggested. 
“Otherwise the swells from that craft might affect 
us unpleasantly.” 

They followed his suggestion and drew in 
toward shore. The steamer came rapidly closer, 



THE RACE 


III 


slowed as it neared its destination and slipped up 
to the pier. 

With interest, the girls watched as the steamer 
disgorged its crowds upon the dock. 

Most of these people—girls and women in gay- 
colored sports clothes and men and boys in natty 
white flannels—landed just long enough to eat 
lunch and get a glimpse of the picturesque forest. 
Then back again by the steamer to New Melford. 

Suddenly, with a hysterical giggle and a clutch 
on Jessie’s arm, Amy pointed to some one in the 
crowd. 

“Do my eyes deceive me?” she cried. “Or is 
that Belle Ringold?” 

“What!” cried Darry, starting up, a hunted 
look on his face. “Tell me you are mistaken, 
Amy—quick!” 

“Would that I could, but I cannot,” returned 
Amy mournfully. 

Jessie and Nell now discovered with dismay 
that Belle was accompanied by her boon com¬ 
panion, Sally Moon. 

“Merciful heaven, let’s get out of this!” cried 
Burd. “Let’s go home!” 

“For once, Burd, you have said something with 
some sense to it,” Darry declared, as with strong 
quick strokes he headed the canoe about and 
started back toward Forest Lodge, the girls in 
their wake. 



112 


THE RACE 


They made the trip back to the dock in record 
time. The boys beat the girls, but they refrained 
from taunting them with the fact. They were too 
much occupied congratulating themselves over the 
fortunate escape from Belle and Sally. 

But to their chagrin, a few hours later that 
afternoon they found these same two girls camped 
before the door of the lodge, quite evidently on 
the watch for them. Aunt Emma had been talk¬ 
ing to Belle and Sally, and the Radio Girls 
chuckled at the look on their chaperone’s face. 

The young folks had been for a tramp in the 
woods and had come back, talkative and happy— 
to this. Belle and Sally were seated in a pony 
cart, and Belle held the reins negligently over an 
exceedingly wide-awake and alert looking pony. 

“Oh, so here you are!” called out the girl, as 
Jessie and Darry, leading the party, came in 
sight. “You were gone so long we began to think 
you were never coming back!” 

Belle spoke gayly and with seeming cordiality. 
However, the girls were not deceived by this atti¬ 
tude. It was assumed, they knew, so that Sally 
and Belle might ingratiate themselves with the 
boys. It seemed probable that their sole motive 
in visiting Forest Lodge was the prospect of 
speaking to Darry and Burd again. 

“Would that we had stayed a little longer,” 



THE RACE 


113 

said Darry, in a mournful undertone to Jessie, 
and the latter shot him a mischievous glance. 

Belle caught her look, and it did little to in¬ 
crease her good temper. 

“Well, aren’t you even going to say hello?” she 
asked pettishly. “I must say you are not very 
polite!” 

“Sorry, Belle, I am sure,” said Jessie coolly. 
“Of course we did not know you were here or 
we would not have stayed away so long. Won’t 
you come in for a little while?” 

Belle ignored this question and turned eagerly 
to Darry. 

“We are staying with a friend of ours for a 
day or two,” she said. “She is a sort of cousin 
of mine and she owns a beautiful cottage about a 
mile from here. If we like it here,” she added, 
smiling coyly at the harassed Darry, “we might 
stay longer.” 

“Is that a threat or a promise?” murmured the 
impish Amy, and unfortunately Belle heard her. 

The girl’s face flamed red and she turned upon 
Amy furiously. 

“If you want to know, I wasn’t speaking to 
you,” she flared. 

“And if you want to know, I wasn’t speaking to 
you, either,” returned Amy coolly. Jessie put an 
urgent hand upon her chum’s arm. 



THE RACE 


114 


“Don’t answer her,” she whispered. “Can’t 
you see she is just spoiling for a fight?” 

Sally had buttonholed the uncomfortable Burd 
and Belle was speaking to Darry in a coaxing 
tone. 

“We are having a party to-night, and we would 
like you boys to come. You can come, too, if you 
want to,” she flung carelessly to the three girls. 

Amy started to speak, but Jessie held her back. 
She saw Darry smile and thought him quite 
capable of coping with the situation. 

“We are very sorry,” he said courteously. 
“But we have an engagement with the girls to 
listen in to a big radio concert this evening.” 

“You can come too, if you like,” drawled Amy, 
in such perfect imitation of Belle’s own con¬ 
descending tones that the others were convulsed. 

In sudden fury Belle brought the whip in her 
hand down upon the pony’s back. The little 
animal snorted, jumped, and began to run. 

“Look out,” cried Jessie, wildly. “He is headed 
straight for the dock!” 



CHAPTER XIV 


IN THE MUD 

B ELLE saw the danger and began frantically 
sawing at the reins. It was too late. 
The outraged animal had taken the bit 
in his teeth and started to run. He was going to 
keep on running. 

Sally began to scream, and Belle, beside herself 
with fear and not knowing what she did, began to 
use the whip. That was the last straw. No 
animal could be expected to stand such treatment. 

Paralysed as they had been for a moment by 
the sudden turn of affairs, the boys were galvan¬ 
ized to action by the screams of Sally and Belle. 
They rushed headlong after the pony, the Radio 
Girls and Nell also in pursuit. 

Out upon the dock the pony raced, shying a 
little as he saw the water. 

Sally and Belle took advantage of the momen¬ 
tarily slackened speed, and, shrieking wildly, 
jumped from the pony cart into the water. 

The pony reared, turned to one side, and at 
that moment Darry reached his head and caught 
the reins, close to the bit. He pulled the pony’s 


n6 


IN THE MUD 


head down with all his strength, speaking at the 
same time reassuringly. 

“Whoa, old boy. Steady now, steady. Noth¬ 
ing’s going to hurt you. That’s the ticket. Nice 
little fellow, nice old boy.” 

The pony stood still, bobbing his head and 
nervously pawing at the dock. It was an easy 
matter then for Darry to turn him about and 
head him back to shore. 

Meanwhile the others had rushed to the rescue 
of the bedraggled and raging girls. They had 
fallen into the muddy part of the lake, and had 
literally to be dragged out upon the dock. Their 
natty suits were covered with mud and slime, their 
hair had come loose from the pins, and their faces 
were bespattered with mud. An unpleasant spec¬ 
tacle, and the worst of it was that Belle and Sally 
knew it full well. 

Without a word of thanks and with glances that 
were blacker than the mud that covered them, they 
climbed once more into the pony cart and drove 
away. 

The boys and girls waited until they were out 
of sight before giving way to their hysterical 
mirth. 

“Poor Belle! Poor Sally!” gasped Amy, as 
they turned back toward the lodge where Miss 
Ailing was waiting for them. “I never saw any¬ 
thing so screamingly funny in my life.” 



IN THE MUD 


II 7 


“Served Belle Ringold right!” said Jessie, 
indignantly. “Imagine whipping that darling 
pony!” 

“Well, he got even with a vengeance,” chuckled 
Amy. “Belle and Sally won’t forget that duck¬ 
ing in a hurry.” 

It was arranged that early on the next day they 
would pack a lunch and tramp through the woods 
to the station of the forest rangers. Miss Ailing, 
who said she had come up to the lodge for a much 
needed rest, would not join them on this jaunt, 
declaring that forest rangers were no novelty to 
her and that she would enjoy a quiet day in her 
hammock more than a long hike through the 
woods. 

The next day was an ideal one for their trip 
and, as Phrosy had packed them a hamper of 
good things, they expected to enjoy themselves 
thoroughly. 

A little before noon they reached the station of 
the forest rangers and regarded curiously the 
long, low buildings and towering antennae of the 
wireless. 

“I would like to see their sending set,” said 
Jessie, eagerly. “It must be a wonder.” 

“Well, come along,” Darry answered. “We’ll 
probably find somebody to show us the place.” 

It was their good fortune that the first man 
they met was John Halsey, head of the forest 



n8 


IN THE MUD 


rangers and a very amiable and pleasant gentle¬ 
man. 

When the young folks explained the reason for 
their visit and he saw that the girls were real radio 
fans, he made them welcome and volunteered to 
conduct them personally about the station. 

“We have a large dynamo here,” he said, as he 
led them into the broadcasting room, where the 
girls examined with eager interest the huge send¬ 
ing apparatus. “By means of this department of 
radio we keep in constant touch with various 
points throughout the forest.” 

“Then you must have receiving sets in the 
woods,” said Jessie. 

“So we have,” replied Mr. Halsey, smiling. 
“The receiving end is, naturally, of as much im¬ 
portance as the sending. The broadcasting appa¬ 
ratus is the mouth, the receiving apparatus the 
ears, of the service.” 

“It is wonderful!” murmured Jessie. 

“Do you suppose we could catch any of those 
messages on our set?” put in Amy, curiously. 

“All you have to do is to tune in properly,” 
answered Mr. Halsey, with a pleasant laugh. 
“Our messages are your personal property. I’ll 
give you the wave length,” and he did so. 

“How thrilling! Then if there were a fire in 
the forest we would know all about it!” cried 
Nell. 



IN THE MUD 


119 

“Indeed you would. And there are occasions 
when it is quite necessary to locate a forest fire,” 
returned Mr. Halsey, seriously. “These fires 
sometimes travel with, seemingly, the swiftness 
of lightning, and it takes good work to outdistance 
them.” 

“Have there been many fires lately?” asked 
Jessie, with interest, and was conscious of a dis¬ 
tinct disappointment when he laughingly shook his 
head. 

“Not many, luckily. And I can only hope that 
we continue immune. I can remember the time,” 
he continued, seriously, “when a great fire, sweep¬ 
ing northward, encroached so perilously upon this 
station that we were forced to dismantle our 
apparatus and take to the water. That was in 
the old days when radio was in its infancy and we 
had not yet learned to make airplanes the eyes of 
the service.” 

“I have heard about that—about the use of 
airplanes in the service of the forest rangers, I 
mean,” said Darry, “and I have heard the pilots 
do a noble work.” 

“They do,” said Mr. Halsey emphatically. 

“Must be a lot of excitement,” observed Fol. 

“Excitement—and danger,” amended Mr. Hal¬ 
sey. “Our airmen have to fly so low in order to 
observe the progress of the fire that often they 
are in the midst of a rain of burning embers. 



120 


IN THE MUD 


Plenty of chance for heroism in the flying service 
of the rangers.” 

“The airplanes must be equipped with radio or 
they couldn’t keep in touch with the station,” sug¬ 
gested Jessie, and Mr. Halsey smiled at her 
interest. 

“Each plane is equipped with radio, Miss Nor¬ 
wood, and a very sensitive apparatus, at that,” he 
said. “They keep in constant touch with the fire¬ 
fighters and direct operations all through. They 
are, as I have said before, the eyes of the 
service.” 

The young people spent another delightful half 
hour, studying the receiving apparatus, wander¬ 
ing through the interesting quarters of the men, 
and listening to Mr. Halsey’s talk. Then, know¬ 
ing that they had a long tramp before them they 
said good-bye to Mr. Halsey, thanking him for 
his kindness to them and promising to visit the 
station again before they returned to New Mel- 
ford. 

Only a short distance from the station of the 
forest rangers they came upon an ideal spot to eat 
the lunch Phrosy had'put up for them, and settled 
themselves comfortably for the feast. 

When they had done full justice to the good 
things, they started on again at a slightly quick¬ 
ened pace. It was later than they had thought, 



IN THE MUD 


121 


and they were conscious of a queer eagerness to be 
at the lodge again. 

They did not at first attribute this eagerness to 
the fact that the path they were on did not seem 
as familiar to them as it should, considering that 
they had so recently trod it on their way to the 
station. 

It was only when the path became more and 
more indistinct, the foliage thicker and almost 
impenetrable that they recognized the truth. 
They were lost. 



CHAPTER XV 


LOST IN THE WOODS 

X T E certainly are the prize simpletons,” 
\\ said Amy, in disgust, as she sank 
down upon a great rock and looked 
about her. “Imagine getting lost in the woods— 
and at our age, too!” 

“I think we must have been going about in 
circles for the last hour,” said Nell, wearily. 
“This looks exactly like the spot we started from.” 

“It is, my dear girl,” remarked Darry, dis¬ 
gustedly. “We are getting nowhere with aston- 
ing rapidity. I am just about ready to call it a 
day.” 

“You will soon call it a night,” remarked Burd, 
all his usual cheerfulness submerged in a deep 
gloom. 

“Oh, stop glooming,” cried Jessie, and there 
was something in her voice that made them all 
look at her hopefully. She was fumbling in her 
pocket for something, and their curiosity grew. 

“What you got there—a magic charm?” asked 
Darry. 

“Better than that. It’s a compass.” 


122 


LOST IN THE WOODS 


123 


“A compass!” they cried, and the concerted 
sigh of relief was audible. 

“Why didn’t you tell us you had one?” re¬ 
proached Amy. “I have three gray hairs in my 
head from worry.” 

“Forgot I had it,” replied Jessie, as she and 
Darry studied the compass face. “I put it in my 
pocket the last minute thinking we might need it.” 

“And, by cracky, you were right!” exclaimed 
Fol. 

After a good deal of figuring and discussion as 
to the probable direction of the rangers’ station 
and Forest Lodge, they concluded that if they 
followed the needle of the compass north they 
must eventually reach the main trail. 

Jessie kept the compass, and the others meekly 
followed her, thankful for that instinct of caution 
that had suggested the compass to her. 

It took them some time to recover the ground 
they had lost, but their figuring proved to be 
correct and they came at last to the familiar rocky 
trail that led to Forest Lodge. 

“Look at that house over there,” said Jessie, 
suddenly, pointing to a gray and dilapidated little 
shack, standing back among the trees. “I remem¬ 
ber noticing it on our way out and thinking it was 
an unpleasant looking place.” 

“Looks like a fine joint for a murder,” observed 
Burd, and Amy uttered a shriek of protest. 



124 


LOST IN THE WOODS 


“That is a nice thing to say, especially when we 
are still a long way from home,” she protested, 
adding with a shudder, as she glanced at the 
gloomy-looking house: “I declare, I am almost 
afraid to go past the place.” 

“Come, I will protect you,” announced Burd, 
grinning, and linked an arm through Amy’s. But 
Amy was not in a mood to be protected. She 
jerked her arm away from Burd and glared 
indignantly. 

“I will go past that place without any help or 
I won’t go at all,” she declared, and Burd’s grin 
grew broader. 

“All right, but as you pass, all of you glance in 
the side window,” he said, and they looked at him 
in amazement. 

Of course no one meant to obey this command 
and of course every one did. It was Amy who 
first discovered what Burd meant. 

“Sheets!” she said, in a bewildered tone. “Lots 
of sheets hung all over that room!” And they all 
drew closer to the hut. 

“Just like the morgue,” said Burd. But when 
Amy turned on him, he amended quickly: “Maybe 
it’s a laundry for folks about the lake.” 

“Hey, what are you doing around here?” de¬ 
manded a rough voice, and they turned, startled 
to see a man approaching them from the rear of 
the house. He was a surly-looking fellow with 



LOST IN THE WOODS 


125 


a week’s growth of beard on his face. “What are 
you doing here?” he demanded again. “Don’t 
you know this is private ground?” 

“We confess to ignorance on that point, 
stranger,” said Darry, with a glint of amusement 
in his eyes. “We were not aware that we were 
trespassing.” 

“Well, you are!” growled the man, and his 
manner became more threatening. “And what’s 
more, we don’t want no strangers round here. 
You get out and stay out. Understand?” 

Darry’s hands were clenched in anger and the 
other two boys were beginning to show fight, but 
the girls urged them onward. 

“We don’t want any trouble,” said Jessie, 
urgently, as Darry seemed inclined to linger and 
settle with the ruffian then and there. “We don’t 
know what kind of people they are.” 

“I can guess pretty well what kind they are!” 

“But it is getting so late, Darry. Please.” 

Reluctantly Darry yielded to her, and they went 
on, leaving the man glowering after them un¬ 
pleasantly. 

“Surly ruffian. I would like to get my hands 
on him.” 

“Same here,” growled Burd. “Any one would 
think we were planning to rob his house.” 

“Looks more as though he were planning to 



126 


LOST IN THE WOODS 


rob ours,” said Amy. “If ever I saw a villain, 
that fellow was it.” 

“I wonder why he was so anxious to get us 
away?” mused Jessie. “There must have been 
something about that house he was afraid to have 
us see.” 

It was now fast getting dark, and the young 
folks were almost running along the narrow rocky 
trail. Somehow, after their meeting with that 
surly fellow outside the shabby, mysterious hut, 
they wished less than ever to be overtaken by the 
dark when they were still far from Forest Lodge. 

More than once Jessie paused, ear tuned to 
listen, more than half fearing pursuit, and, hear¬ 
ing nothing but the noises of the forest, allowed 
Darry to hurry her on again. 

“We are almost there,” he assured her at the 
last of these uneasy pauses. “I recognize that 
great oak we just passed, and back there a little 
way I thought I saw the dock.” 

“Oh, Darry, I will be so glad when we get 
home!” panted Jessie, and, taking her hand to 
hurry her on, Darry saw that she was trembling. 

“Why, I do believe you are frightened,” he 
said, in quick concern. “What are you afraid of, 
Jess?” 

“I don’t know,” she gasped, between quick- 
drawn breaths. “I sort of have a feeling that 
something terrible is going to happen. I can’t 



LOST IN THE WOODS 


127 


tell you what makes me feel that way. It is just 
silly, I suppose——” 

“You are tired,” Darry interrupted, kindly. 
“Let’s not hurry so fast. We don’t have to, you 
know. We could find our way blindfolded from 
here on.” 

“I would hate to try,” said Jessie, trying to 
laugh. “Probably we would end up by walking 
into the lake. Oh, Darry, where are the others?” 

“Right ahead of us. Why, Jess, what is the 
matter?” 

“Darry! Listen! Oh, what is that?” 

From the direction of the marsh came a sound, 
eerie, moaning, rising to a terrible wail and dying 
off gradually into a throbbing silence. It came 
again and again. 

Jessie caught Darry’s hand and ran wildly, 
blindly, toward the lodge. 




CHAPTER XVI 


FROM THE SWAMP 

T HE girls and boys burst into the lodge to 
find Phrosy on her knees, hands raised 
heavenward in supplication. 

“Dos ghosts is after me! Ah done knows it! 
Dis time dey gwine kill me fo’ sure!” 

“Nonsense, Phrosy,” scolded Miss Ailing, but 
even her voice was not so assured as usual. “That 
was only a fog horn.” 

“An’ what am a fog horn doin’ out in dat 
swamp, Miss Emma?” quavered the colored 

woman. “Ain’t no boats out dere as Ah knows 
>> 

on. 

“What do you suppose it was?” gasped Amy, 
her face white in the lamp light. “I never heard 
anything so dreadful!” 

“It was de ghosts, Miss Amy,” shrieked Phrosy, 
as she got lumberingly to her feet, threw her apron 
over her head, and dashed into her room, leaving 
them staring vacantly after her. 

“Shut the door, somebody, do!” cried Jessie, 
in a voice just above a whisper. “It will keep 
out that sound. Listen—there it is again!” 

128 


FROM THE SWAMP 


129 


“My advice is not to listen,” said Darry, in a 
strange, gruff voice. “I think it would do us all 
good to eat something.” 

His last words were drowned by another shriek 
from Phrosy, and they all rushed into her room 
to find her standing before a window, her eyes 
rolling with fright. She was shaking as though 
she had the palsy. 

They ran to the window and followed the direc¬ 
tion of her pointing finger. The sight they wit¬ 
nessed then was enough to test the stoutest nerves. 

Down by the swamp moving stealthily among 
the trees were shrouded, shadowy figures, white 
and vague of outline. While they watched, the 
figures disappeared slowly, seeming to dissolve 
into the shadows beyond their range of vision. 

Phrosy was sobbing hysterically, and even the 
level-headed young folks were severely shaken. 

“Let’s get out of here—you, too, Phrosy,” said 
Jessie suddenly. “It won’t do any good to stand 
there looking out toward the swamp and watch¬ 
ing for things. We will stay on the other side 
of the house for the next hour or so.” 

“What do you suppose the answer is, Darry?” 
Burd asked some time later, when they had so 
far pacified and cajoled Phrosy as to induce her 
to start preparations for a meal. 

Jessie had suggested a fire in the grate with the 
idea of making the room more cheerful, and, 



130 


FROM THE SWAMP 


though the weather was not cool enough to war¬ 
rant it, the others had cordially assented to the 
suggestion. 

Now the young folks were gathered about the 
fire in a cozy semicircle while Aunt Emma was 
engaged in “managing” Phrosy in the kitchen. 

“I haven’t the slightest idea what it means,” 
said Darry, in response to Burd’s question. “Only 
I am sure it must be some kind of a fake,” he 
added. “Just give us a little time, and we will 
show it up.” 

“That is just my idea,” said Fol, eagerly. 
“What do you say to starting out to investigate 
that swamp in earnest early to-morrow morn¬ 
ing?” 

“A clever idea, Fol,” applauded Burd. “Just 
what I was about to suggest myself.” 

“Why the look of deep thought, Darry, dear?” 
asked Amy, who had been regarding her brother 
with interest. “Aren’t you enthusiastic about 
meeting our friends, the ghosts, face to face?” 

Darry turned to her, an absent look in his 
eyes. 

“Why, I can’t to-morrow,” he said hesitantly. 
“I have-” 

“A date!” finished Burd, adding dryly: “I 
reckon I could tell where it is and with whom, too. 
And all that without the slightest pretensions to 
clairvoyance, either.” 




FROM THE SWAMP 


13 * 

Darry shot him an annoyed glance and his eyes 
once more sought the fire. His silence was 
ominous. 

Jessie, looking at him, became suddenly con¬ 
scious that she was rather angry at Darry. 

“If you are going to Gibbonsville, I don’t see 
why you won’t tell us about it,” she said, and 
Darry stirred uncomfortably. 

“I just want to run down there for an hour or 
two,” he finally said, with a forced lightness that 
was evident to them all. “I suppose we can hunt 
ghosts in the afternoon just as well as in the 
morning, can’t we?” 

“I don’t suppose it is really necessary to hunt 
them at all,” said Amy, coolly, adding with the 
privileged frankness of a sister: “Really, Darry, 
this mystery business is getting on our nerves. 
I think I may say without any fear of contradic¬ 
tion, that you are annoying your friends, im¬ 
mensely.” 

“Sorry,” said Darry, not at all in the tone that 
carries conviction; and there the matter dropped 
for the time being. 

Dinner was served and the young folks gath¬ 
ered eagerly about the table. 

That night Phrosy again spent the hours be¬ 
tween midnight and dawn sitting upright in the 
living room with an oil lamp for company. And 
in the morning the girls found that her bag was 



i 3 2 


FROM THE SWAMP 


packed and that she could not this time be coaxed 
from her firm determination to leave the lodge 
before darkness came again. 

In every way things seemed topsy-turvy, and 
they were torn between annoyance at Phrosy’s 
decision and bewilderment at Darry’s insistence 
that he possessed an unbreakable engagement in 
town. 

He went away abruptly right after breakfast, 
seeming in a great hurry to avoid any inconvenient 
questioning by them. They watched him go, and 
in uncomfortable silence turned back to the house. 

“There is Phrosy, hat on and bag in hand,” said 
Nell, pointing to the door of the lodge. “We 
surely are being deserted wholesale this morning.” 

Jessie tried to plead with the black woman, but 
found her obdurate. Phrosy would like to accom¬ 
modate Miss Jessie, she “sho would, but she 
wouldn't take a chance of hearin’ dose ghosts 
again, no, suh, not fo’ nobody.” 

Finally all that was left to them was to bid her 
good-bye and God-speed, which they did with a 
sigh. Burd and Foi volunteered to see her safe 
aboard the boat, and so the three girls were left 
alone. 

They sat down on a pile of stones near the 
lodge and stared gloomily out toward the lake. 
Presently Amy giggled. 

“As we look now we would make a perfectly 



FROM THE SWAMP 


133 


stunning group, entitled ‘Gloom,’ ” she said. 
“Snap out of it, girls. Somebody say something 
cheerful.” 

“I don’t feel like it,” confessed Jessie, adding, 
crossly: “I think Darry is horrid to act the way 
he does.” 

“He is a pest,” assented Amy, immediately. 
“The question is, what are we going to do 
about it?” 

“I’ll tell you,” said Nell, and they looked at her 
hopefully. “What do you say, we get Fol to 
drive us into Gibbonsville and find out what Darry 
is up to?” 

Amy clapped her hands and applauded the idea, 
but Jessie looked doubtful. 

“Wouldn’t that be spying?” she asked, but Amy 
caught her up quickly. 

“When anybody acts as queerly as Darry has 
lately, he deserves to be spied upon. After all, 
I guess we have as much right as he has to go to 
Gibbonsville if we want to,” she added, with a 
giggle. 

Jessie was still rather doubtful, but the other 
girls finally overruled her objections. After all, 
it would be a good thing if they could find out 
something about that mysterious girl in whom 
Darry seemed to take so much interest. 

When Burd and Fol returned from the boat¬ 
landing, reporting that they had seen Phrosy 



134 


FROM THE SWAMP 


safely aboard, Nell drew Fol aside and engaged 
him in earnest conversation. 

Jessie and Amy, watching with interest, saw 
him shake his head several times and thought the 
battle was lost. But after a while Nell approached 
them with a triumphant expression and announced 
that Fol had agreed to drive them down in the 
touring car any time they wanted to go. 

“Better get started right away,” said Amy, 
light-heartedly. “Mr. Darry may find that he 
hasn’t a crowd of infants to deal with, after all.” 

They told Burd of their plans and asked him to 
go with them, but he refused with the frank 
admission that he was afraid of Darry. 

“Huh, who’s afraid of him!” sniffed Amy, as 
she snapped to the door of the car. “Darry is all 
bark. He couldn’t bite if he tried.” 

Some time later, as they were nearing Gibbons- 
ville, Jessie began to feel unpleasantly nervous. 
She was forced to acknowledge to herself that she 
was actually afraid to find out what Darry’s mys¬ 
terious business in this shabby little village might 
be. If she had dared, she would have begged 
Fol to take them back to Forest Lodge. 

As they entered Gibbonsville Amy thought she 
caught a glimpse of Darry’s car going down a side 
street and called out to Fol to follow it. 

“I am sure that was his roadster. First street 
to the left, Fol.” 



FROM THE SWAMP 


135 


When they reached the corner, Jessie saw, 
almost with a sensation of dismay, that Amy had 
been right. Directly ahead of them Darry’s car 
had been parked by the roadside and Darry him¬ 
self was descending from it. 

Cautiously, Fol backed the touring car around 
the corner. It would spoil everything if Darry 
should see them now. Quickly Amy and Nell 
alighted, with Jessie lagging just a little behind 
them. 

They were in time to see Darry’s cordial greet¬ 
ing of the strange girl who had given Amy the 
counterfeit bill. He was holding both her hands 
in his and she was smiling up at him trustingly. 

Amy started forward, but Jessie caught her arm 
and pulled her back. 

“Let’s get away!” she gasped. “I can’t stay 
here any longer! We—we shouldn’t have come!” 



CHAPTER XVII 


PAYMENT OF A DEBT 

G RUMBLINGLY, Amy allowed Jessie to 
draw her away. Nell followed, and all 
climbed quickly into the car. In a 
moment they were off, burning up the road again 
in the direction of Forest Lodge. 

Amy grumbled all the way back, but Jessie 
would hardly speak at all. She could not get the 
vision of Darry and that girl out of her mind. 
She wondered why it should hurt her so much to 
see his friendliness to some one else. 

“You dragged me away before the last act,” 
Amy complained. “Don’t you know the best part 
was still to come—when we confronted the guilty 
man and maiden?” 

“I didn’t want to confront any one,” Jessie 
returned, wearily. “And, besides, I don’t believe 
Darry is guilty of anything.” 

“Well, we at least know he is guilty of friend¬ 
ship with a girl whose past, to say the least of it, 
is a trifle queer,” retorted Amy. “Darry will 
certainly hear my idea of his actions when he gets 
back.” 

136 


PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


137 


It was almost dark when Darry did finally 
return, and all that afternoon Jessie had been 
feverishly restless. She was unable to give her 
mind to anything. Even her beloved radio had 
lost much of its fascination for her, and she 
listened apathetically to a really fine concert from 
New York. 

The other girls did not notice her mood, for 
the reason that they were considerably stirred up 
over the mystery of Darry’s actions. Then, too, 
though they would not for the world have 
acknowledged this to each other, they were rather 
dreading the approach of dark. They could not, 
however much they tried, put from their minds 
the memory of that dreadful wailing lament which 
had reached their ears from the direction of the 
swamp. Constantly before them was the mental 
vision of those ghostly figures, flitting among 
the trees. 

“Looks a good deal like having a ghost hunt 
this afternoon, I must say,” Nell remarked once, 
as they scanned the mountain road for a sign of 
Darry’s roadster. “I can’t say that I relish spend¬ 
ing another night here with those spooks wander¬ 
ing loose around the place.” 

“We can go now if you want to,” Burd sug¬ 
gested. “There is still time to get to the swamp 
and back before dark, and perhaps you would 



138 


PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


rest easier to-night if you could see that there was 
nothing alarming there.” 

“Ghosts aren’t supposed to walk till after dark, 
anyway; so I don’t see any use going down there 
just to look at the place,” was Amy’s ungracious 
response. 

After that Burd and Fol left the girls to their 
own devices and went off to enjoy a little quiet 
fishing. 

Later Amy declared she was tired after having 
slept so little the night before and went to lie 
down. Miss Ailing was listening in to a concert, 
completely absorbed in her new fancy. 

Jessie and Nell wandered down to the dock, 
embarked in their favorite green canoe, and 
drifted out upon the water. 

It was there that Amy found them some time 
later when she came running down to the water’s 
edge, waving something in her hand. 

“You will never guess what I’ve got,” she 
shouted, as the girls paddled nearer to the dock. 
“Darry is back and he brought me a present.” 

As Nell and Jessie clambered out of the canoe, 
they saw that Amy held in her hand something 
green that fluttered in the breeze. 

“A bill!” exclaimed Jessie. “Where did you 
get that from, Amy Drew?” 

“You needn’t look as if I had robbed a bank 
or something,” chuckled Amy. “I came by it 



PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


139 


honestly, I assure you. Didn’t you hear me say 
Darry gave me a present?” 

“Well, you can tell Darry for me that if he is 
distributing five-dollar bills as recklessly as all 
that he can throw some in this direction,” Nell 
remarked. 

Jessie looked from the bill to Amy’s mischiev¬ 
ous face and presently light dawned upon her. 

“Why did he give you that, Amy Drew?” she 
demanded, excitedly. “Tell me quickly before I 
go to Darry and ask him.” 

“That girl gave it to him,” Amy confessed, 
lowering her tone to a mysterious whisper. “She 
told him to give it to me in exchange for the bad 
five-dollar bill.” 

“So Darry has turned into a reformer!” re¬ 
marked Nell, in huge enjoyment. “Imagine 
inducing that girl to give good money for bad.” 

“Darry says she did not know the bill was bad,” 
said Amy. But she added, with a giggle: “I think 
he is a poor simpleton, myself—allowing that girl 
to pull the wool over his eyes. Nobody can ever 
tell me again that I have a bright brother.” 

“Then he admits having seen the girl,” said 
Jessie, thoughtfully. “Did you tell him about our 
trip to Gibbonsville?” 

“No. He got in his innings first. When he 
handed me the bill and told me where it came 



140 


PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


from I was so surprised I couldn’t speak. When 
I had recovered Darry had disappeared.” 

“I think we had better not say anything about 
following him, then,” suggested Jessie, as they 
neared the lodge. “It would only make him 
angry.” 

“I couldn’t get him to tell me anything about 
the girl, not even her name,” said Amy, regret¬ 
fully. “I never saw such an annoying person! 
He is as close-mouthed as a clam!” 

They found Aunt Emma, who hated to cook, in 
the lodge struggling with supper, and immediately 
set about helping her. It was fun to get the fire 
started and brown the ham to a golden crispness 
and fry the eggs till they looked like little white 
islands with a mound of gold in the center. In 
this pleasant occupation the girls forgot to miss 
Phrosy and forgot, for the moment, even to think 
of Phrosy’s ghosts. 

Burd and Fol, coming in a few moments later, 
cheerful and ravenous and triumphantly display¬ 
ing a nice catch of fish, declared that they had 
never tasted so fine a dinner. 

Afterward they listened in to a splendid radio 
concert and about nine o’clock realized with relief 
that the “ghosts” had not chosen to make them¬ 
selves manifest on that night at least. 

On the afternoon of the second day after the 
girls had trailed Darry to Gibbonsville, they were 



PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


141 

tuning in to the wave length of the forest ranger 
station when there came suddenly to them, ring¬ 
ing along the airways, the words: “More men 
on the northeast section, sir. The fire is sweeping 
in a semicircle toward the north.” 

“A fire!” cried Jessie. “Oh, I wonder if it is 
anywhere near us.” 

“Listen, did you hear that?” cried Fol, excit¬ 
edly. “The fire is a long way off-” 

“Down at the other end of Lake Towako 
probably,” agreed Darry. “They will have it in 
hand in no time, I bet. Watch and see.” 

“Listen and see, you mean,” giggled Amy. 

“Listen and hear would be still better,” put 
in Nell, with a jolly laugh. 

“Oh, listen to them,” Jessie implored. “Isn’t 
it wonderful how they can send messages to each 
other right out of the air?” 

It was wonderful, and for the better part of 
two hours the young folks sat without stirring, 
thrilled to the depths of them by this battle be¬ 
tween the greatest enemy of the forest, fire, and 
the ingenuity of man. 

It was evidently quite a serious fire, and as it 
was coming steadily in their direction they were 
all much relieved when the success of the fire¬ 
fighters was announced over the radio. 

“What heroes they must be, these forest 
rangers,” said Jessie, when the air waves were 




142 


PAYMENT OF A DEBT 


mute again. “Think what they have done in this 
last two hours—the property they have saved, 
and lives, too, maybe.’ , 

“I would have liked to see them at work,” re¬ 
marked Fol, musingly. “And, gee I wouldn’t it 
be great to be in one of those airplanes?” 

“I’m not so sure I’d like that,” replied Darry, 
soberly. 

“I think I will have to write a book about see¬ 
ing a forest fire by radio,” chuckled Amy. “It is 
almost as thrilling as being on the spot.” 

“And quite a good deal safer,” laughed Burd. 



CHAPTER XVIII 


ALARMED 

S O QUIET and peaceful and like old times 
had the last two days seemed that the 
Radio Girls were quite unprepared for 
Burd’s announcement that he and Darry and Fol 
were about to desert the camp again. 

“We feel we ought to go down to the swamp 
and investigate those spooks,” said Darry, in re¬ 
sponse to their protests. 

“But we haven’t heard or seen anything lately,” 
said Amy. 

“If you go down there you may just succeed 
in stirring up the animals,” added Nell. 

“And I didn’t hear any invitation for us to go 
along,” said Jessie. “We want to, you know.” 
Darry smiled at her, but shook his head. 

“We don’t think you girls had better go until 
w r e have a chance to look about first,” he said. 
“In our estimation, you are a great deal better off 
right here for the present.” 

“There you go! Mysterious again, Darry 
Drew!” said Amy, with a frown. “What do you 

143 


144 


ALARMED 


suppose could possibly hurt us down at that old 
swamp?” 

“We don’t know, and because we don’t know 
we think it is better we prospect around a little 
by ourselves first,” replied Darry, firmly. 

“We will probably be back by to-night, any¬ 
way,” said Fol, in what was meant to be re¬ 
assurance. 

“Folsom Duckworth, do you mean there is a 
possibility you won’t be back to-night?” demanded 
Nell, in surprise, and Fol looked sheepish. 

“Not a chance in the world,” he answered. 
“What would keep us in a swamp overnight, I 
would like to know?” 

“So would I!” retorted Nell, adding, with a 
sigh: “You boys do interest me strangely!” 

Under protest the girls finally consented to fix 
a lunch for the three boys. They felt uneasy about 
this sudden expedition to the swamp and would 
have dissuaded the boys from undertaking it if 
they could have done so. However, they knew 
Darry well enough to be sure there was no chang¬ 
ing his mind when it was once made up, and in this 
case they felt sure that Darry had originated and 
planned the whole thing. 

It was with vague misgivings then, that they 
watched the boys go off on the narrow path that 
led toward the swamp. 

“I don’t understand it at all,” said Jessie. “The 



ALARMED 


145 


boys act so queerly and seem to have so many 
secrets from us.” 

“Darry must have put them up to this ghost¬ 
hunting trip,” said Amy, voicing the thought that 
had troubled them all. “I caught him talking to 
Burd and Fol very seriously two or three times, 
and when they saw me they changed the subject— 
pronto. Oh, I know them—and I know Darry!” 

“I used to think I did too,” said Jessie, plain¬ 
tively. “But lately he seems like some one else, 
and so do Burd and Fol. I can’t make them 
out.” 

“I think there is more behind this trip than just 
the scare we had the other night,” said Nell. “It 
seems to me the boys have some other reason for 
braving the horrors of the swamp just now.” 

“I tell you what we can do,” suggested Amy, 
the ever-resourceful. “We can do some investi¬ 
gating on our own account!” 

“You mean, follow the boys?” asked Nell, 
doubtfully. 

“We will follow nothing but our own inclina¬ 
tions,” retorted Amy. “I want to find those 
ghosts.” 

“Good! Suppose we pack us a lunch and get 
started right away!” from Jessie. “We may find 
out more about Phrosy’s ghosts than the boys do 
before we get through.” 

Miss Ailing helped them pack a lunch—though 



146 


ALARMED 


they really had not the slightest intention of being 
gone more than an hour or two—and they were 
soon ready to start on their own prospecting 
expedition. 

“This is the life!” cried Amy, as they swung 
along a rock-strewn sloping trail that led in the 
direction of the swamp. “The boys thought they 
would leave us at home to twiddle our thumbs, 
did they? We’ll show them!” 

But as they approached closer to the swamp 
and were enveloped by the damp, unpleasant 
vapor rising from it, their spirits underwent a 
decided slump. Nell and Amy held back, and 
finally Jessie was forced to wait for them to catch 
up to her. 

“What is the matter? Not afraid of ghosts, 
are you?” she teased them. “Why, you haven’t 
even seen any yet.” 

“I keep expecting to have them jump out at me 
from behind the bushes,” confessed Nell. “I have 
a horrible feeling that those ghostly white figures 
are chasing us.” 

“Goodness, let’s hurry then,” said Amy, with 
a laugh and a nervous glance over her shoulder. 
“At the rate we are going they will surely catch 
up to us.” 

“I guess this is about where the swamp begins,” 
said Jessie, sliding a foot about in the oozing mud. 
“See how rank the vegetation is.” 



ALARMED 


147 


“Here’s a path—of a sort—that seems to lead 
through it, though,” observed Nell. 

“Come on, then,” said Amy, with a nervous 
giggle. “It’ll be no worse to be swallowed up 
by the swamp than to be scared to death by the 
ghosts.” 

Gingerly, they felt their way along the soft 
ground, expecting every moment that they might 
slip and find themselves mired in the oozing mud. 

Finally, after half an hour of this sort of prog¬ 
ress, they came to a place where the solid ground 
seemed to end. Before them and on both sides 
of them waved and beckoned the treacherous, too- 
green marsh grass. Jessie, stretching out a foot 
warily in search of firmer footing, drew back as 
the mud sucked greedily at her shoe. 

“No use, I guess,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll 
have to go back and try some other way.” 

Carefully they retraced their steps, slipping 
now and then and clutching at one another in wild 
panic. Once they thought they had lost the trail. 
It was only a moment before they found the firmer 
ground again, but the absolute terror of those 
few seconds was unforgetable. 

Once upon familiar ground again in the shelter 
of the forest, they could laugh at their panic, but 
even then they could not think of it without a 
shudder. 

“I don’t see why we went into the swamp, any- 



148 


ALARMED 


way/’ remarked Nell, as they started slowly to 
circle the swamp. “Those horrid figures we saw 
were on the edge of the swamp, not in it.” 

“Well, we might as well look around here, any¬ 
way,” replied Jessie. 

“Though I don’t in the least expect to see any¬ 
thing but our own shadows,” added Amy, gloom- 
ily. 

The forest seemed so unusually quiet and peace¬ 
ful to the girls that they began to question whether 
they had not imagined that moaning, eerie cry, 
those white figures flitting among the trees near 
the swamp. 

At last, tired and a little shaken by their ex¬ 
perience in the swamp, they ate their lunch and 
returned to Forest Lodge. 

Darkness came, and still the boys did not re¬ 
turn. Night came, and morning, and still no word 
of them. How they managed to live through the 
hours of the long day that followed, the girls 
could never tell. 

Another night they passed in Forest Lodge, and 
when the second morning dawned they were hol¬ 
low-eyed and shaken with worry. 

Miss Ailing protested vigorously when they 
declared their decision of invading the swamp 
again in search of the boys. Once more she 
warned them of the dangers that lurked in that 
treacherous place. 



ALARMED 


149 


“I would rather get lost in the swamp and die 
&nd have my bones bleached by the sun than spend 
another minute worrying/’ said Amy. 

“I will take my compass with me, anyway,” 
Jessie promised. 

“A compass is your very best friend in the 
woods,” Miss Ailing admitted. 

Clad in their knicker suits with leather leggings 
to protect them from the scratches of thorns and 
twigs, carrying with them a liberal supply of sand¬ 
wiches and fruit, the Radio Girls set out to trail 
the boys. 

They did not linger on the way, but went swiftly 
down the narrow trail toward the swamp, intent 
upon their purpose. After the long and anxious 
wait, action of any sort meant relief to them. 

As they approached the swampy ground the 
vegetation became profuse and rank and the earth 
turned slimy underfoot. There was a musty, un¬ 
pleasant odor, such as they had noticed two days 
before, arising from the marshes. Knowing that 
the trail they had followed on that unsuccessful 
invasion of the swamp was a false one, they turned 
sharply to their left on this occasion, choosing 
their steps with even greater care than before. 

“I wonder if this is the direction the boys took,” 
said Amy, when they stopped on a small rise of 
ground to catch their breath before hurrying on. 



ALARMED 


150 

“I’d hate to think we were wasting time by going 
in the wrong direction.” 

“I am sure we are right so far,” Jessie re¬ 
assured her, consulting the compass in her hand. 
“They started due south, and up to this point the 
trail is quite plain.” 

“The question now seems to be, where do we 
go from here?” remarked Nell, looking about her 
with distaste at the sea of rank grass and vege¬ 
tation. “If we make a false step we may find our¬ 
selves up to our necks in mud.” 

For some distance the ground remained soft 
and slimy. Then they came to a comparatively 
solid trail over which they could proceed more 
rapidly. 

Suddenly, ahead of her through the thinning 
trees and vegetation, Jessie saw something that 
brought her to a halt. 

Out on a rise of solid ground, such as were 
scattered over the swamp like tiny islands in a 
lake, was a queer-looking hut. The windows of 
the hut, seen from that distance, appeared no 
bigger than the portholes of a ship. 

A flat scow or raft lay close to this “island,” 
as though it were used to carry occupants of the 
hut back and forth to the shore. 

Jessie beckoned to the other girls, and as they 
joined her several disreputable-looking men and 
women emerged from the hut and, embarking 



ALARMED 


— 

upon the raft, pushed out from the island in the 
direction of the shore. 

“Now what do you think of that?” demanded 
Amy, but Jessie pressed an urgent, silencing hand 
over her mouth. The appearance of those men 
and women on the raft warned her that it would 
never do to make known their presence in that 
vicinity. 

Suddenly a faint sound reached their ears, seem¬ 
ing to come from a long distance. It was a cry 
for help. 

“That was Darry’s voice!” cried Jessie, 
trembling. 



CHAPTER XIX 


IN DANGER 

T HE girls listened, clinging together, 
scarcely daring to breathe, and the cry 
was repeated, fainter and coming abruptly 
to an end. 

“Darry! Darryl” cried Amy, in a sudden, ter¬ 
rible fear. “That was his voice, Jessie! He is in 

trouble! He may be hurt, dying-” 

As though driven to recklessness by the thought, 
Amy turned and dashed blindly ahead, sinking 
suddenly almost to her knees in mud and water. 

Jessie and Nell dragged her out, only quick 
action saving them all from being sucked down 
into the merciless black slime. 

“Oh, I am sorry, Jess—Nell!” said Amy, sob¬ 
bing in her fright and remorse. “I might have 
killed you both! I won’t do it again. But, girls, 
we must find Darry!” 

“The ground is harder over here,” cried Jessie, 
her words coming quick and staccato through 
chattering teeth. “Come this way.” 

She dashed madly through the underbrush and 
entangling vines, catching her clothes on bushes 
152 



IN DANGER 


153 


and tearing them recklessly. Nell and Amy fol¬ 
lowed her blindly, the echo of that haunting cry 
for help flogging them onward. 

Their hands and faces were scratched and 
bleeding, their clothes torn in a hundred places, 
and still they went on. Once Amy became so 
helplessly entangled in the rank undergrowth that 
Nell and Jessie were forced to stop and spend 
precious minutes in the effort to tear her loose. 

Again, Jessie, setting the pace, missed her foot¬ 
ing on the solid ground and sank into the yielding 
mud. Luckily, Amy and Nell were close behind 
her, and with a strength born of desperation 
pulled her back to a safe footing. 

At times they stopped and listened again for 
Darry’s voice. But no repetition of that cry 
came to guide them, and they could only struggle 
on blindly, pantingly, trusting that another hun¬ 
dred yards would bring them to him. 

Still no sign of him, and they paused exhausted, 
to gather strength for a further search. They 
looked at each other for the first time and wanted 
to cry at the pitiful picture they made. 

Covered with mud, clothes torn, hair hanging 
stringy and wild from contact with twigs and 
bushes, faces scratched and bleeding, they them¬ 
selves might easily have been mistaken for the 
ones in need of rescue. 



154 


IN DANGER 


But after that one startled look they returned 
frantically to Darry’s need of help. 

“We seem so utterly helpless,” Amy cried des¬ 
pairingly. “We might wander around forever 
like this and never find him. We have nothing 
to guide us—nothing!” 

“Come on,” urged Jessie. “I am sure the cry 
came from this direction. If we go on, we have 
a chance of finding him. If we stand still we 
have none.” 

So on again, discouragement and despair grow¬ 
ing as they pushed farther and farther into the 
tangled vegetation of the swamp. 

At last, when even Jessie had begun to acknowl¬ 
edge they had failed, they heard voices. They 
stopped short, fearful lest the owners of them 
might be some of the men and women from the 
hut in the swamp. 

The voices were masculine and carefully 
guarded. Creeping closer, Amy suddenly gave a 
cry of delight and flung herself forward. When 
Jessie and Nell followed they found her in the 
act of embracing the astonished Burd, while Fol 
stood by looking on incredulously. 

There were many questions to be asked and 
answered on both sides, but they hurried the ex¬ 
planations, goaded on by the thought of Darry 
and his need of them. 

The two boys, it seemed, had been hunting 



IN DANGER 


155 


ceaselessly for their missing chum since the morn¬ 
ing of the first day they had spent in the swamp t 
when Darry had become separated from them and 
disappeared as completely as though he had been 
spirited away by gnomes. 

At first they had not been alarmed, thinking 
that they must soon come upon him, but as the 
hours passed and still no sign of him, they had 
become greatly worried. That, said Burd, was 
where the real search began. 

“But we just heard him now!” cried Amy. “He 
was calling for help, and it sounded as if he were 
a long distance off.” 

Burd nodded and rubbed the stubbly beard 
which had begun to put in an appearance, the 
result of two days of neglect. 

“That was Darry, all right,” he said. “If he 
had only kept on shouting we might have had some 
chance of finding him.” 

“Sounded to us as if that last cry was choked 
off,” said Nell gravely. 

“Probably Darry tried to yell again but they 
wouldn’t let him,” put in Fol. 

“Who do you mean by ‘they?’ ” asked Jessie, 
Burd looked at her and saw how white her face 
was beneath the scratches and mud. 

“The people in the hut out there in the swamp,” 
he answered. “Did you see it as you came 
along?” 



IN DANGER 


156 

The girls assured him that they had noticed 
the hut and asked him eagerly what he and Fol 
knew about the people who lived there. 

“They seem a rough set, and that is all we 
know for a fact,” responded Fol. 

“We will tell you all about that hut later on,” 
said Burd, turning eagerly toward that part of 
the swamp and forest which they had not already 
explored. “Just now, I think we had better stir 
ourselves again. I have a feeling in my bones 
that we are getting close to Darry.” 

It occurred to Jessie that the boys must want 
food after their two harassed days in the open, 
and she offered them some of the sandwiches they 
had brought along. 

Burd and Fol accepted eagerly, but they would 
not let hunger delay them. They munched at the 
food as they plodded on through the swamp, 
hoping always that they would come upon Darry’s 
trail. 

“Look here—see what I have found!” called 
Jessie, suddenly, and she held up a piece of torn 
cloth that had caught upon a bush. She was 
trembling so with excitement that she could hardly 
speak. 

“It is part of Darry’s jacket!” she went on. 
“Look, Amy. You know it is, don’t you?” 

“It is, it is!” cried Amy, pressing the bit of 
cloth hysterically to her face. “Darry, Darry, 



IN DANGER 


157 


what have they done to you? If they dared to 

hurt you I would-” She clenched her fist 

threateningly and Burd took her by the arm, 
gently leading her on. 

“Come on. I have an idea,” he said eagerly. 
“That piece of cloth may mean a lot, if my 
suspicion is correct, Jess. Look here!” 

He stooped and picked up some pieces of loose 
paper from the ground. 

“These are from Darry’s notebook. Am I 
right, Amy?” 

Amy took the pieces of paper and examined 
them. 

“They come from Darry’s notebook, all right,” 
she said. “He always uses that same blue paper 
in his notebook.” 

“Then he is marking a trail!” Jessie’s voice was 
feverishly eager. “This is the first clue we have 
had. Come on, let’s follow it.” 

At Burd’s suggestion, they scattered in several 
directions, searching eagerly, and it was Nell who 
finally picked up the trail again some hundred 
feet further on. There were more loose sheets of 
the same bluish paper, and again they were identi¬ 
fied by Amy as belonging to the notebook that 
Darry invariably carried with him. 

The trail thus marked led sharply off from the 
path they had been following, diverging from it 
almost at a right angle. Without hesitation the 




158 


IN DANGER 


girls and boys prepared to follow this clue, even 
though it seemed to lead them continually deeper 
into the heart of the woods. 

For a considerable distance the trail remained 
fairly plain. It was evident that whoever Darry’s 
captors were, they had left his hands—or at least 
one hand—free, and in this way he had ingen¬ 
iously contrived to mark out the winding path 
through the woods. 

Then, suddenly, all clues abruptly ceased. Al¬ 
though they searched frantically for a long dis¬ 
tance in all directions they found nothing that 
could tell them where Darry had gone from there. 
Once more he had disappeared utterly and com¬ 
pletely. 

“I suppose they found out what he was doing 
at this point,” said Burd, gloomily. “Tied his 
hands, probably. Poor, old Darry! Now we are 
up a tree!” 

Without plan or direction, they wandered on, 
hoping less and less confidently as time went by 
that Fate would reveal to them Darry’s where¬ 
abouts. 

At last, when they were almost dropping with 
fatigue, they came upon a little hut hidden in the 
dense foliage. They were suspicious of it at first, 
thinking it might be the property of people like 
those they had seen in the swamp. But, realizing 



IN DANGER 


159 


finally that it was deserted, they approached 
warily. 

“Why, here is a radio set inside!” Jessie sud¬ 
denly called out, in the tone of one greeting an 
old friend. “Come on in while I hear what it has 
to say.” 

Evidently she heard something unpleasant, for, 
as they crowded to the door of the hut, Jessie 
turned toward them, the headphones dangling 
loosely from her fingers and a look of dread on 
her face. 

“There is a fire!” she cried. “And it must be 
close to here.” 



CHAPTER XX 


THE FIRE 

T HE others stared at Jessie incredulously 
for a moment. Then Amy rushed for¬ 
ward and grasped one of the phones. Sud¬ 
denly the dread in Jessie’s face spread to hers. 

“It must be a terrible fire! They are calling 
out the reserves!” she exclaimed. 

“What shall we do?” cried Nell. “We don’t 
know which way to run!” 

“Let me pass, please,” cried an authoritative 
voice, and a forest ranger dashed past them and 
rushed up to the radio set. The young folks 
watched him with fascinated interest. 

The ranger listened for a moment with fur¬ 
rowed brow, then, by means of the sending ap¬ 
paratus with which the hut was also equipped, 
sent back word to the station that the orders had 
been heard and would be obeyed. 

Then he looked at the young folks as though 
seeing them for the first time. 

“Better get out of here, quick!” he commanded, 
in the curt tones of one who has not a moment 

160 


THE FIRE 


161 


to waste. “Fire sweeping in this direction. Worst 
one in years. Run for it.” 

“But where, where?” cried Jessie, catching his 
sleeve, as he was hurrying out again. “Where 
shall we go?” 

“Straight down to the lake, keep facing north¬ 
west,” commanded the ranger. “Better get out 
on the lake if you have boats. Fire apt to sweep 
the water front if we don’t get busy. Run!” 
With these words he turned and dashed from the 
hut. 

Following him out into the open, the girls and 
boys saw him join a group of rangers, all fully 
equipped for fire fighting. He shouted a com¬ 
mand to the men, and they turned and ran through 
the woods away from the lake. 

“They are going to beat the fire back!” gasped 
Jessie, as they started on a run in the general 
direction of the water. “Poor Darry, we can’t 
even look for him now!” 

“Look at that smoke!” cried Nell, pointing 
to a heavy black cloud that swirled above the 
trees and seemed to be bearing down upon them. 

“The fire must be gaining on us!” sobbed Amy, 
as she pushed steadily on through the nightmare 
branches and entangling vines. “Suppose we can’t 
reach the lake!” 

“We must reach it!” said Jessie, in a hard 



THE FIRE 


162 

voice that she did not recognize as hers at all. 
“Let’s run, can’t we?’’ 

It was then she discovered something that Burd 
had valiantly kept from them up to that time. 
He limped, and one foot seemed to drag painfully 
behind him. 

“Burd, you are hurt!” she cried, in quick con¬ 
cern. “Why didn’t you tell us?” 

“It isn’t anything,” the young fellow assured 
her, trying to summon up his old cheerful grin. 
“Caught my ankle in the root of a tree this morn¬ 
ing and took a pretty header. Serves me right 
for not watching my step.” 

“Oh, but that is dreadful, Burd!” cried Amy, 
forgetful momentarily of their danger, and even 
of Darry, in sympathy for him. “You must have 
been in agony, dragging all these miles with a 
sprained ankle.” 

“Just wrenched, that’s all. Don’t worry about 
it,” said Burd, limping on. But the girls saw that 
his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes 
were clouded with pain. 

Fol and Nell were already out of sight. Fol 
knew ? nothing of Burd’s plight, or he would, of 
course, have stayed to help him. 

Back of them there was a distant crackling 
sound, the pungent odor of burning wood filled 
their nostrils, choking them. 

Jessie gave a quick glance over her shoulder 



THE FIRE 


163 


and caught her breath. A thin fork of red had 
rent for a moment the curtain of smoke. The 
fire was gaining on them! 

“Lean on me, Burd, do,” she said, breathlessly. 
“Amy will take the other side, and we can help 
you. That’s the way.” 

Some new and urgent quality in her voice caused 
Burd also to look behind. He shut his eyes and 
groaned. 

“You will have to go on, girls,” he said. “The 
fire is gaining fast. This foot—I can’t go any 
faster.” 

“We are not going any faster than you can 
go, Burd Ailing,” Amy flashed out at him fiercely. 
“Do you think for a moment we would go and 
leave you? You ought to be ashamed of your¬ 
self!” 

“I am,” said Burd, with an imitation of his 
old grin. 

The next moment he stumbled heavily and fell 
into a hole caused by the uprooting of a giant 
tree. When the girls bent over him he grimaced 
with pain. 

“Better go on,” he said. “Done for the old 
ankle this time, I guess. Feels sort of busted up 
generally.” 

“But, Burd, you must try to get up. You must, 
you must!” cried Amy, shaking him desperately. 
“We will help you. You can lean on Jessie and 



164 


THE FIRE 


me. That horrible smoke. It—is—choking 
me—” She broke off, half-strangled, and Burd, 
with Jessie’s aid, struggled to his feet. 

He said no word as they helped him out of the 
hole and to solid ground again, but his lips were 
white with pain. 

“Come on,” he said, limping ahead, manfully, 
though he alone knew how much that effort cost 
him. “There is a lot of fight left in the old 
carcass yet. Got the compass, Jess? That’s 
right. All you have to do is to keep us steered 
in the right direction.” 

They could hear the roar of the flames now, the 
voices of the fire-fighters as they urged each other 
on. Above the scene of battle hovered the air¬ 
planes, watching keenly the progress of the fire, 
directing each step in the fight. The whirring 
of their engines, like the noise of gigantic beetles, 
came faintly to the ears of Jessie and Amy as, 
with the crippled Burd, they struggled onward 
toward the haven of the water. 

It seemed to them as though the forest had 
suddenly become a sentient thing, reaching out 
horrible nightmare fingers to halt their progress, 
pushing them backward toward the fire and de¬ 
struction. 

At last came a hoarse, triumphant cry from 
Jessie. 



THE FIRE 


165 

“The water—over there, through the trees!” 
she sobbed. “We are safe—safe!” 

The sight of that water was deceptive, for 
they still had a weary way to go before reaching 
the protection of it. But it was possible now to 
see their progress, and Burd, with the anxious 
encouragement of Jessie and Amy, nerved him¬ 
self for that last great effort. 

“There is the lodge,” gasped Amy, pushing the 
hair back from her face. “Tell me I am not 
dreaming, Jess, Burd. It is the lodge, isn’t it?” 

“Thank heaven—yes,” groaned Burd, adding, 
as they pressed forward: “You girls are bricks. 
I won’t forget it. Ouch! Confound that 
rock-” 

“We will have it removed before you come 
this way again,” said Amy, with a choked little 
laugh. “There is Aunt Emma, waiting for us, 
bless her.” 

“Home! I thought we would never see it 
again!” cried Jessie, huskily, as Miss Ailing 
rushed to them, forcing Burd to lean upon her 
shoulder and relieving the exhausted girls. 

They reached the lodge and found Neil and 
Fol inside, hastily packing their belongings. 

“Is it—as bad as that?” asked Jessie, as she 
flung herself into a chair and covered her burning 
eyes with smoke-stained fingers. “Shall we have 
to leave the lodge, Aunt Emma?” 



i66 


THE FIRE 


“I hope not, my dear,” returned Miss Ailing, 
briskly. “We are only preparing for that emer¬ 
gency. The fire, with the impetus it has gained, 
may sweep down to the lake front, and in that 
case our only safe refuge will be the boats.” 

“The radio—we must save that,” cried Jessie, 
feverishly, springing to her feet. “Oh, we must 
hurry—hurry-” 

“We have it almost packed, Jess, dear,” said 
Nell, who had been fussing over Burd and lament¬ 
ing the fact that she and Fol had not known of 
his crippled ankle. “I have it nearly dismantled, 
and Fol has been carefully packing the parts.” 

“One can always depend on Nell,” said Amy, 
as she bestirred herself wearily to help in the 
packing. “What do we do next?” 

Aunt Emma answered the question in a brief 
and efficient manner, and it was only a short time 
before everything was in readiness for a quick 
retreat to the lake in case such an action became 
necessary. 

“Guess we can’t do any more, Jess,” said Amy, 
soberly, as she joined her chum at a window that 
commanded a view of the burning forest. “Our 
game will have to be a waiting one from now on.” 

“That is the most horrible part of it,” cried 
Jessie, in a fierce whisper. “To have to stay 
here and watch—and do nothing! Amy, I can’t 
bear it!” 




CHAPTER XXI 


A TERRIBLE BATTLE 

y\ shall we do about Dairy?” cried 

YY Jessie, despairingly, as the Radio 
Girls stood arm in arm before the 
door of the lodge watching the terrifying progress 
of the fire. “If he has been imprisoned in the 
path of that fire-” 

“Please, don’t, Jess!” implored Amy, shrink¬ 
ing back as a breath of hot wind fanned her face. 
“I can’t bear to think of my poor brother. If 
only we could have found him before the fire 
started!” 

“Don’t go on believing the very worst,” chided 
Nell, gently. “He may have been imprisoned in 
that hut we saw in the swamp for all we know.” 

“But the trail led away from it,” objected Amy. 

“They may have doubled back on their tracks, 
just to elude pursuit,” said Jessie, eagerly willing 
to grasp at the smallest hope. 

“I wonder if swamp grass burns,” said Amy. 

Before any one could respond, the hot breath 
of the fire enveloped them, driving them toward 
the lake. The roar of the burning timber was 



/ 


168 A TERRIBLE BATTLE 

terrifyingly loud and the smoke rolled toward 
them in a dense black cloud. 

The girls put their hands before their smarting 
eyes and retreated still farther toward the lake. 
Through blurred vision they saw Fol dash from 
the lodge with Burd limping painfully after him. 

They ran forward and intercepted the boys, 
demanding what they were going to do. 

“Fight the fire, of course,” replied Fol, pulling 
impatiently away from their restraining hands. 
“I guess the rangers need every man they can 
get.” 

“But you, Burd! You aren’t fit to go,” pro¬ 
tested Amy. “Your foot-” 

“I have forgotten all about my foot,” retorted 
Burd, with a grimness altogether new to him. 
“After the fire is over will be time enough to 
remember it.” 

“If you can go, so can we!” cried Jessie, her 
eyes suddenly blazing with purpose. 

“That’s the idea!” cried Amy and Nell, eag¬ 
erly, and the boys paused for a moment to regard 
them admiringly. 

“You girls are the real stuff, all right,” said 
Burd, and Fol added: 

“Come along, and maybe they will have a gunny 
sack or two to spare.” 

The girls did not understand this reference, 
but they were soon to have it explained to them. 




A TERRIBLE BATTLE 


169 


They battled their way through the increasingly 
heavy smoke and the scorching heat to the first 
line of the fire-fighters. 

There men worked like fiends with the sweat 
streaming down their soot-stained faces, blood¬ 
shot eyes strained and set and determined. They 
worked with pick and shovel and hose and wet 
gunny sacks, chopping down ruthlessly branches 
of trees that were in the path of the fire, digging 
trenches in the earth to balk the darting flames, 
beating out with the sodden sacks little creeping 
hungry streams of fire that wriggled snakelike 
through the underbrush, the foreguard of fresh 
terror and destruction. 

It was to this last task that the girls found 
themselves assigned. The forest rangers made 
no question of their presence there, merely taking 
time from their own fierce labors to motion to 
the gunny sacks. 

The girls needed no further permission or in¬ 
struction. Fired by the dauntless spirit of the men 
about them, stirred to fierce anger by the re¬ 
lentless onrush of the fire, they felt themselves 
suddenly incapable of fatigue or of fear. 

Smoke burned their eyes, their throats were 
parched and dry. They tried to swallow and 
found their tongues swollen to twice the normal 
size. 

Still they fought on, laying their dry and 



170 


A TERRIBLE BATTLE 


scorched sacks upon a pile of others and accepting 
new and sodden ones from the supply being con¬ 
stantly rushed to the spot by the rangers. 

In spite of all they could do they were losing, 
were being pushed back slowly but steadily to¬ 
ward the water. The wind, gentle at first, was 
increasing in volume. It looked as though the 
entire water front was doomed to go. 

“Look!” gasped Amy, hoarsely, grasping Jes¬ 
sie’s arm and pointing upward. “The top branches 
of these trees have caught! We can’t fight it, up 
there.” 

The order was given and they retreated some 
twenty yards. The work was to be done all over 
again, new trenches dug, new branches hacked 
away, more fighting of those insidious ribbons of 
flame darting slyly through the underbrush. 

“Come on, Nell,” cried Jessie, hoarsely, bran¬ 
dishing her sack. “See where the fire is spreading 
over there? Quick!” 

Nell followed her, and together they beat out 
that fresh assault. They rested for a moment, 
panting, only to rush to another spot where the 
flames had gained a foothold. 

They caught sight of the boys now and then, 
and their hearts swelled with pride as they saw 
the look upon their faces and the gallant way 
they fought shoulder to shoulder with the older 


men. 



A TERRIBLE BATTLE 


171 

If Darry were only there, in his place, beside 
them! Oh, where was Darry? 

Once when they stopped to gain a breath they 
were surprised to see Miss Ailing rushing up to 
them. On her face was the determined expres¬ 
sion they had come to know so well. 

“They need more men out here,” Miss Ailing 
shouted. “And when it comes to work I am as 
good as any man.” And as though to prove her 
words she went to work with a will and a fresh 
new energy that further inspired the tired girls. 

Suddenly it seemed that they were gaining 
ground. The wind had shifted and was bearing 
the flames backward over the charred and rav¬ 
aged territory. 

The rangers closed in, working fiercely to make 
the most of this advantage, striving to conquer the 
flames before the fickle wind could change again. 

Sacks hung limply from tired fingers, every 
nerve and muscle quivered with fatigue. The girls 
rested, convinced that the battle was all but won. 

“Do I look as bad as I feel?” asked Amy, 
vainly trying to stretch her cracked and parched 
lips into some semblance of a smile. “I can’t make 
my muscles behave.” 

“My eyes!” moaned Nell. 

“You girls worked like Trojans!” 

It was Burd’s voice, and they turned to find 



172 


A TERRIBLE BATTLE 


him regarding them with bloodshot but approv¬ 
ing eyes. 

“Do you think the worst of it is over?” asked 
Jessie, looking out toward the flames, which, 
unconquered, still roared upward. 

“If the wind doesn’t change again we are safe 
enough,” said Burd. “The fire won’t find much 
to feed on in the burned territory.” 

“Oh, but look at that!” cried Amy, in sudden 
new terror. “It is coming this way again. The 
wind has changed!” 

A startled glance proved that she was right. 
The fickle wind swept the flames again in their 
direction. The tongues of fire reached out eag¬ 
erly, lapping at the branches as though the tem¬ 
porary lull had merely whetted its appetite. 

“Girls, Burd, Fol—look over there!” almost 
screamed Jessie, as she pointed toward the swamp. 
“That crowd of people!” 

Like rats swarming from the hold of a burning 
ship, men and women were pouring from the 
forest, running toward the lake. Between two 
rough and bearded men was a tall familiar figure. 

“Darry!” cried Jessie, in a tone that mounted 
above the roaring of the fire. “It is Darry! Can’t 
you see?” 



CHAPTER XXII 


THE ESCAPE 

T HERE was a sudden commotion in the 
motley crowd. The tall figure between 
the two rough-looking men wrenched sud¬ 
denly free, and dashed, head down, toward the 
lake. 

One or two made a faint-hearted attempt to 
stop him, put out a hand or a leg to trip him. 
The men who had been his captors started in 
pursuit, but the hot breath of the fire enveloped 
them and drove them toward the safety of the 
water. 

Darry—for there was no doubt now that it was 
he—kept on running in the direction of the lodge, 
and the girls and boys, forgetful of everything but 
joy at the sight of him, dropped everything and 
ran to meet him. 

It was Amy who reached him first, and she 
flung herself into his arms and clung to him, sob¬ 
bing hysterically. 

“Darry, Darry, where have you been? We 
thought they had killed you! We looked for you 
everywhere!” 


173 


174 


THE ESCAPE 


Darry patted her reassuringly and gently un¬ 
clasped her arms from about his neck. The others 
had reached them by this time and had flung 
themselves upon Darry with a score of eager 
questions. 

He held them off laughingly and motioned to¬ 
ward the scene of the fire. 

“Never mind about me,” he said. “I can tell 
you my experiences later, after the fire is con¬ 
quered. Looks as it we were pretty badly needed 
over there.” 

It needed only one hasty glance over their 
shoulders to assure them that he was right. The 
Are, with the impetus of the wind behind it, was 
sweeping onward with renewed vigor. Once more 
the lodge and all the buildings along the lake 
front were menaced. 

Led by Darry, the young folks returned once 
more to the fight. They longed to ask him ques¬ 
tions and have them answered, but during that 
next strenuous hour there was time for nothing 
but concerted desperate effort to fight off the 
encroaching flames. 

Where the fire had crept forward steadily, but 
slowly, before, it now leaped ahead, seeming to 
mock at the puny efforts of the men who sought 
to defeat it. 

It ran up into branches of trees over their 
heads, reached scorching fingers across the 



THE ESCAPE 


175 


trenches dug to stay its advance, crackled glee¬ 
fully in the dry and brittle underbrush. 

Once Jessie felt a touch on her arm and looked 
up to see Darry standing beside her. 

“Better get back to the lodge,” he said. “It 
won’t be long before we’ll have to take to the 
water.” 

“Things are all packed and ready to put into 
the boats,” she told him gaspingly. “Don’t want 
to go back—till we have to, Darry.” 

“Good sports, you girls,” muttered Darry, and 
reached for the pick with which he had been 
helping dig a new trench. 

It was all of no use. The girls realized that 
even before Miss Ailing gave definite orders to 
return to the lodge. The fire was gaining so 
rapidly that it was only a matter of a short time 
before they would be forced to abandon the lodge. 

Wearily they turned away while the forest 
rangers still fought on with grim determination. 
They would not give up the battle until the last 
defense had fallen. 

Once within the lodge, Burd sank into a chair 
with a groan of pain he could no longer suppress. 
But even then, when the girls wanted to take off 
his boot and examine the injured ankle, he would 
not let them. 

“Time enough for that,” he said, in almost the 



i/6 


THE ESCAPE 


same words Darry had used, “when the fire is 
out.” 

The dancing flames of the fire filled the interior 
of the lodge with a weird red glow. The air 
was heavy and thick with the stifling smoke. 

“Better take to the boats right away,” said 
Darry, coming in from a last survey of the burn¬ 
ing forest. “The air in here is getting pretty rank.” 

“The radio first, girls,” said Jessie, gathering 
up as much of the dismantled apparatus as she 
could carry. “We can come back for our clothes 
later on.” 

They were carrying the first load of things into 
the open when Amy noticed that the air was not 
so thick with smoke. With a cry of elation she 
called Jessie’s attention to the fact that once more 
the wind had shifted. 

“And it is starting to rain!” exclaimed Fol, 
showing them a large drop on the back of his 
hand. “Now, that is what I call luck!” 

The rain fell gently at first, but finally came 
down in a sheeting torrent that hissed into the 
boiling caldron of the fire and eventually reduced 
it to a sea of smoldering embers. 

Forest Lodge was saved! In the grip of re¬ 
action and utter weariness, the girls and boys 
reentered the lodge, dropped into the big chairs, 
and propped weary heads on blistered and black¬ 
ened hands. 



THE ESCAPE 


177 


Miss Ailing, seeing the state of affairs, herself 
perilously near the point of exhaustion, bound up 
their injuries, treated Burd’s swollen and painful 
ankle, and then packed them all off to bed. 

For once they were all glad to obey her, and 
from then until long past dinner time that evening, 
they slept heavily, exhaustedly. 

The rain which had proved their salvation con¬ 
tinued to beat down soddenly, and when Jessie 
finally opened her eyes she thought they had 
never looked upon so dreary a prospect. 

Through her window, she could see, from 
where she lay upon the bed, the blackened, rav¬ 
aged trunks of what had once been monarchs of 
the forest. The smoke from wet embers still de- 
pressingly filled the air and the rain beat down 
with a steady, monotonously mournful sound. 

Slowly the kaleidoscopic events of the day came 
back to her, and when she thought of Darry and 
realized that he was no longer in danger but safe 
with the boys in the cottage only a few feet away, 
her depression vanished magically and she ran 
into the other room to shake the still-sleeping 
Amy into wakefulness. 

“Ouch, my arm hurts,” grumbled Amy, reluc¬ 
tantly opening one eye. “Oh, it’s you, Jess,” she 
added, showing a little more animation. “What 
do you want? Is the forest on fire again?” 

At the word “fire,” Nell sat up with a start 



178 


THE ESCAPE 


and a cry of alarm but, reassured by the sound 
of the storm, turned and smiled at the girls 
sheepishly. 

“Listen!” Jessie commanded suddenly, as there 
came to her the sounds of footsteps without and 
the opening of the front door. “There are the 
boys, I guess.” 

“They smelled the dinner cooking,” said Amy, 
still in a grumbling humor. “They never come 
near us unless they have something to gain by it.” 

They found the boys in high spirits, despite 
the fact that singed hair and eyebrows, an oc¬ 
casional bandaged hand or ear and Burd’s swollen 
and painful ankle made vivid reference to the 
perils of that day. 

The girls were quick to sense beneath their 
hilarity an undercurrent of intense excitement. 

“Look where the conquering heroines come,” 
Burd greeted them, trying to rise and sinking back 
again with an exclamation of annoyance at the 
sharp twinge in his ankle. 

“Heroines!” repeated Jessie, with a chuckle. 
“We feel more like the battered victims of a 
wreck.” 



CHAPTER XXIII 


SUSPICION 

“rpHAT is some wreck out there, for a 
fact,” said Darry, soberly, as he waved 
a hand in the direction of the desolate 
forest. “I reckon that fire has done thousands of 
dollars worth of damage.” 

‘‘We may be very thankful it didn’t wipe out 
Forest Lodge, as well,” said Aunt Emma, coming 
from the kitchen at that moment and bearing a 
huge tray laden with johnnycake. “We might be 
huddled in the boats now, wondering what to do 
next, instead of sitting snug and safe in here-” 

“Eyeing the most delicious platter of corn- 
bread ever evolved by a cook,” finished Jessie, 
gayly. 

“I vote we do something more than eye it,” 
cried Fol. “Come on, fellows, let’s get next to 
that cornbread!” 

There were chicken croquets besides and a 
steaming dish of boiled potatoes and a bowl of 
peaches for dessert. 

After dinner, seated cozily about the grate fire, 
the girls could no longer restrain their curiosity. 

179 



i8o 


SUSPICION 


“If you keep us waiting another minute to tell 
us what you did down at that swamp, I am quite 
certain I shall explode,” said Amy, decidedly. 

“We have seen quite enough wreckage to-day 
without your starting something,” declared Burd. 
There were signs of impatience on the girls’ part 
at this speech, so he asked quickly: “What is it 
you would like to know, fair ones?” 

“Oh, Burd, you are exasperating!” cried Jes¬ 
sie, impatiently, adding, as she turned to Darry: 
“Aren’t you ever going to tell us about those 
awful people who captured you, Darry, and all 
the rest of it? You must know how eager we are 
to know what really happened.” 

“It is a pretty long story, and not all of it is 
exactly pleasant,” returned Darry, gravely, his 
gaze fixed steadily on the leaping flames in the 
fireplace. “You must have thought my actions 
for the past week or two rather—er—curious.” 

The girls exchanged glances and Amy said 
dryly: 

“You don’t know the half of it, Darry.” 

“You remember Link Mullen up at college, 
don’t you, Burd?” Darry asked with apparent 
irrelevance. “The dark one with the eyebrow 
moustache—friend of Monty Reid?” 

“Link—of course I remember Link,” returned 
Burd, his gaze introspective. “Sporty guy, rather 
too fond of hitting the high spots?” 



SUSPICION 


181 


Darry nodded. His expression was still un¬ 
usually grave. The girls listened silently not dar¬ 
ing to interrupt him lest he retire once more 
into that baffling shell of reticence which had 
puzzled them so long. 

“That is Link all right,” he said. “Kind- 
hearted, you know, and a good fellow, the life of 
a party and all that. But his sister worried about 
him, tried to cut him off too much conviviality, 
midnight parties and such things.” 

“His sister!” exclaimed Jessie. “Oh, Darry, 
then that tall girl was-” 

“Link Mullen’s sister,” agreed Darry. 

“But how did she come to be in New Melford 
and, later, in Gibbonsville?” cried Amy, and 
Darry gestured impatiently. 

“Give me time. I was coming to that,” he pro¬ 
tested. “Link and his sister—their parents are 
dead, and they live with their guardian, who is 
in South America at present—had a quarrel, and 
the girl ran away from home, declaring that if 
Link intended to ruin himself she did not intend 
to stay around and watch him do it.” 

“Must have been a bird of a quarrel,” mur¬ 
mured Burd, appreciatively. “Go ahead, old man, 
what happened next?” 

“The girl kept her word and slipped away the 
next day, taking only a grip with her and leaving 
no word as to her destination.” 




SUSPICION 


182 


“But where do you come in, Darry?” asked 
Jessie, softly. 

“Right about here,” returned the boy, smiling 
at her. “Link was pretty much cut up, and he 
came to me and asked me to help him find his 
sister. Of course I said I would, but I hadn’t 
the least idea in the world how I was going to 
do it.” 

“You knew her by sight, then, did you?” asked 
Amy. 

“Link had brought her up to one or two of the 
college affairs,” replied Darry. “He was mighty 
proud and fond of her.” 

“But not proud or fond enough to reform for 
her sweet sake,” remarked Amy dryly. 

“I imagine this has been a lesson to him. He 
told me that if he was ever lucky enough to get 
Eileen back he would never do another thing to 
cross her as long as he lived. He was afraid 
she might be tempted to do something desperate, 
you see.” 

“I guess he was right. If you could call passing 
counterfeit five-dollar bills desperate,” remarked 
Amy, and Darry took her up quickly. 

“That is just the point,” he countered. “The 
girl didn’t know the bill was counterfeit.” 

“That is what they all say,” remarked Amy, 
unconvinced. Jessie broke in before Darry could 
voice his exasperation. 



SUSPICION 


183 


“How did she happen to get this bill, Darry?” 
she asked quietly. Darry turned to her with a 
gesture of relief. 

“She befriended a strange woman, prevented 
her being run over when she was crossing the 
street. Eileen told me when I hunted her up at 
Gibbonsville that the woman seemed to be in a 
befuddled condition, whether from liquor or drugs 
she could not say, and she had given Eileen in 
return for her service a five-dollar bill.” 

“The counterfeit!” cried Amy, dramatically. 
“At last we are on the trail!” 

“We were!” Darry unexpectedly agreed with 
her. “Amazed at the magnificence of this gift 
for so comparatively small a service, Eileen made 
inquiries and found that the woman in all prob¬ 
ability was a member of a gang who had been 
suspected at different times of trying to pass 
counterfeit money-” 

“And so Eileen presented me with her counter¬ 
feit bill!” remarked Amy, ignoring Darry’s irri¬ 
tated glare. “Pretty clever work, I should say.” 

“Link’s sister had already asked you to change 
the bill before she found out—or rather, suspec¬ 
ted—that it was counterfeit,” he told her coldly. 

“If she was so honest what made her run 
away that time when we saw her in Gibbonsville?” 
asked Amy, still not completely convinced. “She 
could have stood her ground then and given me 




184 radio girls at forest lodge 


the good five-dollar bill as well as to hand it to 
you later.” 

“Oh, Amy, don’t you see how different that 
is?” Jessie cried eagerly. “When this girl saw 
us she had no way of knowing we were friendly!” 

As a matter of fact, we weren’t,” said Nell. 
“We were all inclined to be suspicious of her, 
thought she must be a member of some counter¬ 
feiting gang.” 

“Of course! And, thinking that, she didn’t 
know but what we might try to have her arrested. 
Later when Darry found her and was so friendly 
she was encouraged to do what she had probably 
wanted to do for a long time—make good that 
counterfeit bill,” said Jessie, earnestly. 

Again Darry gave her a grateful glance. 

“Well go ahead, Darry. There is still con¬ 
siderable mystery to unravel. What became of 
the woman who gave Eileen the counterfeit bill?” 

“Ah, now you come to the real point of this 
yarn,” said Burd. “You sure did ask a leading 
question that time, Amy.” 

“From Eileen’s description,” Darry continued, 
“I thought I recognized the woman as one whom 
I had seen in Gibbonsville talking with some 
rough-looking men. I did a little sleuthing on my 
own account and finally trailed the woman and 
her companions in the direction of Forest Lodge.” 

“Forest Lodge!” they cried, and instinctively 



SUSPICION 


185 


glanced about at the shadows that pressed in 
upon them. 

“Go on, Darry,” urged Jessie, eagerly. “I be¬ 
lieve I begin to see light.” 

“You found out about that hut in the swamp 1” 
cried Nell. “Now, I know why you were so 
anxious to investigate Phrosy’s ghosts!” 

“Hold on, hold on!” begged Amy, rubbing a 
hand across a troubled forehead. “You proceed 
too swiftly for me, as Miss Seymour would re¬ 
mark. My poor intelligence refuses to follow 
your drift.” 

“You see, it was like this,” said Burd, taking 
the story away from Darry and speaking swiftly. 
“Darry did find out that this woman and her 
companions came from the hut in the swamp, 
and he got it into his well-oiled brain pan that 
this unpleasant abode was the home of counter¬ 
feiters-” 

“An ideal one I must say,” murmured Amy. 
“Absolutely safe from intrusion.” 

“Ideal, as you say,” agreed Burd. “And if it 
had not been for Darry, the invincible sleuth- 
hound, it might have remained absolutely safe 
from intrusion to the end of time. He confided 
to Fol and me his suspicions, and we immediately 
decided to investigate the inhabitants of the mys¬ 
terious hut.” 

“And you never told us a word about it!” 





i86 


SUSPICION 


complained Amy. ‘‘That is what I call just plain 
mean.” 

“All the time you said you were going to in¬ 
vestigate the queer noises from the swamp, you 
were after the counterfeiters!” exclaimed Jessie, 
excitedly. 

“Not on your life!” Fol chuckled. “When we 
said we were after ghosts, we were after ghosts.” 

“And, by George,” announced Burd, emphati¬ 
cally, “we found ’em, too!” 



CHAPTER XXIV 


IMPRISONED 

U nconsciously the girls moved their 

chairs nearer to the glowing fire, clasped 
hands for reassurance of earthly presence. 
They looked at the boys curiously, yet fearfully. 

“You found the ghosts!” repeated Jessie, in¬ 
credulously. “Darry, what does he mean by 
that?” 

Darry chuckled. 

“Just what he says, I guess,” he returned, 
adding quickly, as excitement gripped him again: 
“When I told the fellows about the hut in the 
swamp we got to wondering if those ghostly man¬ 
ifestations might not possibly come from the same 
source-” 

“Oh, oh, oh, I just thought of something!” 
cried Jessie, and the boys looked at her expec¬ 
tantly. Her eyes were dancing with excitement. 
“Those sheets in the house we passed the day we 
got lost coming home from the ranger station!” 

“Bright girl,” applauded Fol. “Once more 
you have hit the nail right on the head.” 

“I will hit something beside a nail on the head 
187 



188 


IMPRISONED 


if you don’t tell me what you are talking about,” 
threatened Amy. “What in the world have 
sheets-” 

“To do with ghosts?” finished Nell, as excited 
by this time as Jessie. “Why, Amy, I am ashamed 
of you. A child could answer that question.” 

“Then you think that the sheets we saw hang¬ 
ing in the room of that strange house have some¬ 
thing to do with the ghostly figures cavorting 
around near the camp that night Phrosy got so 
scared?” asked Amy, incredulously, and the boys 
nodded, laughing at her disbelief. 

“We are practically certain that the whole 
thing was simply a sham, a clumsy device em¬ 
ployed by the people in the hut to prevent in¬ 
vestigation.” 

“Then you think counterfeit money is actually 
made there?” asked Jessie. 

“Unfortunately, I can’t be sure,” and Darry 
shook his head ruefully. “I used that old scow 
of theirs to get over to the hut and I was just 
in the act of finding out several interesting things 
when a man came around the back of the hut and 
nabbed me.” 

“That was when you gave us the slip,” said 
Burd. “We thought for a while that you had 
fallen victim to the swamp.” 

“Go on, Darry,” Nell urged. “Tell us what 




IMPRISONED 


189 


happened to you after the villain nabbed you 
by the neck.” 

“Oh, yes, how did you manage to make that 
trail through the woods ?” questioned Jessie. “We 
followed it for a long way, and then suddenly 
lost all trace of you.” 

“The piece of cloth from my coat was an acci¬ 
dent,” Darry replied. “It tore on a bush and 
that gave me an idea. I managed to reach into 
my pocket and get my notebook, and I will tell 
you there isn’t much of that notebook left.” 

“Why did the trail end so suddenly?” asked 
Nell. 

“My notebook gave out. Besides,” added 
Darry, “the ruffians had become suspicious and 
insisted on tying my hands behind my back. We 
forded a stream near there and doubled back on 
our tracks toward the hut. I imagine the whole 
thing was a ruse to divert attention from head¬ 
quarters.” 

“You were in the hut then when you called 
out for help?” asked Jessie, and Darry nodded. 

“I knew the boys would be somewhere in the 
vicinity, although I had no idea you girls would 
be game enough to come out and join in the 
search. I yelled once, and then they stuffed my 
mouth full of some dirty old rag and that was 
the end of any further vocal protests from yours 
truly.” 



190 


IMPRISONED 


“But I should think while you were in the hut 
you could have snooped around and found out 
what sort of place it was,” said Amy. 

“If you can tell me how a fellow can be ex¬ 
pected to snoop around with his hands and feet 
tied and a gag in his mouth you are a better 
man than I am, sweet sis,” Darry retorted. “Be¬ 
side, there were two rooms in the hut, and the 
one I was in was as dark as pitch. I defy an 
owl to see in such a light. It was an age, I lay 
there gagged and bound.” 

“Throw another log on that fire, will you, 
Fol?” asked Nell, for the fire in the grate had 
died down to a flicker. “All this talk about 
counterfeiters and ghosts and things makes me 
long for the cheer of a hearty blaze.” 

“Darry, please go on,” urged Jessie. “What 
happened when the alarm of fire reached the hut?” 

“There was a general stampede to get away 
from there as soon as possible,” replied Darry. 
“I thought they had forgotten me for a while, 
and I don’t mind telling you that I never remem¬ 
ber spending a more uncomfortable few minutes. 
Even being the victim of a band of criminals 
seemed a more pleasant prospect than being left, 
bound hand and foot, to the mercy of a forest 
fire. A red glow began to filter in through the 
small window near the roof of the hut and I could 




IMPRISONED 


191 

smell the smoke. After a while I could even hear 
the crackling of timber-” 

“Darry, how dreadful!” cried Jessie. “With 
your hands and feet tied I suppose there was no 
chance for you to help yourself.” 

“I had loosened the bonds on my hands by that 
time,” Darry explained. “But my feet were 
crossed and tied in such a way that I was abso¬ 
lutely helpless. I could have rolled to the door 
of the hut, and that was what I had started to do 
when I heard a sound outside and lay still. A 
moment later a man came in and unbound my feet. 
Even then it was all I could do to stand.” He 
paused for a moment and grimaced reminiscently. 

“If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget 
the pain in my legs and feet. I stumbled, and 
if the ruffian had not grabbed me I would have 
gone flat on my face. 

“After that you know nearly all there is to 
tell,” he went on, glancing around at the intent 
faces. “I found myself in a group of my select 
friends, and they all seemed to be in the grip of a 
helpless terror. When I made a dash for my 
freedom—having recovered the use of my feet— 
it was an easy matter to get away from them. 
They seemed hardly to notice what I was doing.” 

“But, good gracious, they may come after you 
again, Darry!” exclaimed Nell, as she glanced 
apprehensively at the closed door and at the win- 




192 


IMPRISONED 


dow outside which the rain still fell steadily. 
“How do we know they may not be hanging 
around the house now, lying in wait for you!” 

“Probably they are engaged in putting as great 
a distance between us as possible,’’ laughed 
Darry. “That reminds me,” he added, “that if 
we expect to apprehend these rascals it will be 
necessary to work quickly. They will no doubt 
have taken the alarm now, knowing that we are 
on their trail. Their cue will be to light out, and 
that, pronto” 

“Correct, as usual. But what do you suggest?” 
asked Fol, with interest. “We can hardly hope 
to round up this gang of criminals single-handed, 
and by the time we get back to Gibbonsville and 
give the alarm it will probably be too late; the 
counterfeiters will have fled.” 

“I have thought of that,” admitted Darry. 

“But I certainly hate like poison to let that gang 
escape,” cried Burd, impatiently. 

“Besides that, I have an insatiable curiosity to 
find out if my suspicions concerning the furnish¬ 
ings of that hut are correct,” continued Darry. 

“We haven’t a gun among us, either,” said 
Burd, disgustedly. 

Amy pointed to the ancient firearms that 
adorned the walls of the lodge. 

“What do you mean—we haven’t a gun?” she 
giggled 



IMPRISONED 


193 


“They look as if they hadn’t seen active service 
since the War of the Revolution,” remarked 
Darry, grinning. “I fear if we came armed with 
them, our friends, the counterfeiters, would give 
us the merry ha-ha.” 

“I have an idea, and it is so simple I wonder 
none of you has thought of it,” said Jessie. 

“Maybe it is so simple none of us could think 
of it,” murmured Amy, and Jessie ignored her as 
she deserved: 

“Why not broadcast a message by radio—the 
most efficient detective service in the world!” 



CHAPTER XXV 

A CAPTURE BY RADIO 

I T took the others a moment or two to grasp 
the meaning of Jessie’s suggestion. The 
idea was too new to them. 

Then Burd leaned over and shook her hand 
warmly. 

“We come, brother,” he said gravely. “That 
idea is worthy even of my gigantic brain. When 
do we begin and where?” 

“To-morrow at the forest ranger station,” 
replied Jessie, her eyes dancing. “We can broad¬ 
cast the description of the criminals and the loca¬ 
tion of the hut—or rather, the rangers can.” 

“By George, that is one great idea!” broke in 
Darry, admiringly. “Funny I never thought of 
radio in that connection.” 

“You certainly do take the cake, Jess darling,” 
said Amy, generously, if slangily. “I would do a 
lot for a mind like that!” 

The party broke up soon after that, for aching 
muscles required their due and the monotonous 
dripping of the rain made them all very sleepy. 

In the morning they woke refreshed to find the 
194 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


195 


sun shining gloriously on leaves and branches that 
still dripped moisture. Fatigue had miraculously 
disappeared and there remained only the patheti¬ 
cally blackened trunks of trees to remind them of 
the tragic happenings of the day before. 

They breakfasted early, eager to enlist the help 
of the forest rangers as soon as possible in the 
matter of the mysterious hut in the swamp. 

It was impossible for Burd to go, as his ankle 
was still swollen and very painful, so Amy volun¬ 
teered to stay behind and read to the invalid. 
This suggestion was not wholly disinterested on 
her part, for Amy was still more lame than she 
cared to admit from the exertions of the day 
before. 

The four young folks started off briskly, 
spurred on by a recognized need of haste but 
vaguely saddened by the signs of ruin and de¬ 
struction that had followed in the wake of the 
fire. 

Nearing the ranger station, Jessie and Darry 
found that they had gone too fast for Nell and 
Fol, and lingered to allow the other two to catch 
up to them. 

It was while they were seated on a huge 
boulder idly talking over the events of the day 
before that Jessie voiced the thought uppermost 
in her mind. 

“Darry, I have been wondering what you did 



196 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


about that poor girl, Link Mullen’s sister,” she 
said, a little hesitantly. “You never told us, you 
know.” 

“Probably that is because I have not been able 
to do anything,” returned Darry. “Eileen Mullen 
is stubborn and she has enormous pride. She 
positively refuses to return to Link. She declares 
that when she left home after their quarrel she 
intended never to go back.” 

“I do wish we could help her,” said Jessie, long¬ 
ingly, but as Nell and Fol reappeared at that 
moment, no more was said upon the subject. 

“We have nearly come to the house in the 
woods where they hung out the wash in the living 
room,” Nell called, and Darry nodded. 

“I intend to keep my eyes open,” he assured 
her. 

But when they came to it the house appeared 
as dreary and deserted as though no one had lived 
there for years and the room in which the sheets 
had been hung was protected from critical inspec¬ 
tion by tightly-drawn shades. 

At the ranger station Mr. Halsey met them 
and listened with keen interest to their story of 
Darry’s misadventure in the swamp and of the 
people who inhabited the hut. They told him 
also of the ghostlike noises from the swamp and 
of the white figures they had seen flitting among 
the trees. 



A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


197 


When Jessie explained their idea of soliciting 
the aid of the police by radio, he agreed to 
have the message sent out over the airways 
immediately. 

“I wish we might have known of this before,” 
he said, gravely, as he accompanied them to the 
broadcasting room. “We have suspected for a 
long time that something illicit and mysterious 
was being carried on in this vicinity, but there has 
never been anything definite upon which to base 
our suspicions. We will investigate this matter 
thoroughly now, I can assure you.” 

Messages were sent out for miles in all direc¬ 
tions and, satisfied that they had done all in 
their power to further the ends of justice, the 
girls and boys said good-bye to Mr. Halsey, after 
thanking him, and started back toward the 
lodge. 

Once more they passed the house in the woods, 
and this time Darry saw, or thought he saw, a 
face at one of the upper windows. 

“That is what I call exasperating!” he ex¬ 
claimed, as they continued on through the woods. 
“Another moment, and I could have sworn to 
that fellow’s identity.” 

“If we knew what you were talking about we 
might follow you more intelligently,” suggested 
Fol, and Darry explained. 

“That fellow at the window looked a lot like 



198 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


one of the men at the hut,” he said. “I am 
pretty positive now that my guess as to where 
Phrosy’s ghosts came from is correct.” 

Upon reaching the lodge they found the three 
stay-at-homes looking the pictures of peace and 
contentment, and immediately set about trying to 
spoil things for them, as Amy languidly com¬ 
plained. 

Having packed all their belongings the day 
before, it was necessary to reverse the process 
now that the safety of the lodge was assured. 
This occupied much of the afternoon, and as the 
shadows became longer they were oppressed by 
a strange uneasiness. In every rustle of a leaf, in 
every cracking of a twig outside the lodge, it 
seemed they could detect the furtive approach 
of some of the motley crowd who made their 
home in the swamp. The air seemed to be mur¬ 
murous with whispers, the sighing of the wind 
through the trees took on a weird and wailing 
sound as though uneasy spirits roamed the woods. 

“If radio doesn’t get in some fine work pretty 
soon,” grumbled Amy, “I can see where our last 
few days here are going to be spoiled. I can see 
a ghost in every shadow.” 

As though to bear out her assertion there came 
from the direction of the swamp a faint wailing, 
growing steadily louder in volume—rising to a 
shriek and dying off into a frantic sobbing sound. 



A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


199 


Again and again it came, and the girls crowded 
into the living room as though for mutual pro¬ 
tection and stared at each other in growing 
perturbation. 

At that moment Darry and Fol burst into the 
room with Burd limping manfully after them. 
Behind them came three men, who, despite the 
fact that they wore no uniform, bore the unmis¬ 
takable stamp of police officers. 

“We are just in time for the entertainment, 
I see,” said the tallest of the three, with a grim¬ 
ness of tone that fell reassuringly upon the electric 
tension in the room. “These hut dwellers have 
decided to give a special demonstration for our 
benefit, evidently.” 

The three men, led by Aunt Emma, marched 
into the room recently occupied by Phrosy, and 
the boys lingered behind for a word with the 
surprised and excited girls. 

“We bumped into these officers just as we were 
coming in,” said Burd. “They received the radio 
message and have men planted down by the 
swamp ready to close in on the hut when they give 
the signal. Come along, if you want to be in 
on the big show.” 

“But, Burd, your foot! How can you go?” 
protested Amy, and Burd looked down at the 
injured member contemptuously. 

“You don’t suppose I would let a little thing 



200 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


like that keep me at home, do you?” he queried. 
“Just watch me.” 

At that moment the three officers stalked out 
again, Aunt Emma, flushed and excited, at their 
heels. They seemed in a great hurry. They 
rushed out of the lodge, the girls and boys after 
them. 

Down toward the swamp they ran, the con¬ 
tinued wailings of the “ghosts” drowning the 
sound of their footsteps. Only a few feet from 
the swamp now, and those absurd white figures 
still flitting eerily among the trees. 

The shrill note of a whistle sounded, followed 
by the answering shout of men, who came dashing 
from the shadows. 

The shrouded white figures stood still for a 
moment as though frozen into immobility. Then 
shrieks and shouts rent the air. The ghosts 
turned to fly—and were surrounded. 

Several of them, dropping the sheets that 
swathed them, ran for cover, away from the 
police. But the boys were too quick for them. 
Darting from their hidden vantage point among 
the trees, they waylaid the rascals and engaged 
them in lusty warfare. Back and forth they 
lunged, fighting desperately, while the girls 
watched with fascinated interest. 

Suddenly Jessie clutched Amy’s arm and pointed 
through the trees. 



A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


201 


“Over there!” she cried. “Do you see what 
I see?” 

“Those are women—trying to get away! Come 
on!” cried Amy. 

Without stopping to think, the girls started in 
pursuit of the two creatures slinking off through 
the trees. The women, hampered by their cling¬ 
ing skirts, could not run swiftly, and it was com¬ 
paratively easy for the three athletic girls to over¬ 
take them. 

Jessie and Amy blocked the path in front while 
Nell encircled them to the right, cutting off escape 
in that direction. 

The women took a step or two backward, show¬ 
ing their teeth like cornered rats. Then, turning 
to the one avenue of escape left to them, they 
crouched low and started to run. 

“Stop them! Stop them!” cried Jessie, and 
at that moment a shadow detached itself from 
the deeper shadows of the forest and grasped the 
two women roughly. 

“Thought you would get away, eh?” growled 
a voice which the girls recognized as belonging to 
the tallest of the three officers who had come 
to the lodge. “You would, too, if it had not been 
for these brave young ladies here. You think 
you’re a slick pair, but you didn’t get away with 
it. Come along now r . I guess we’ve got the 
whole works.” 



202 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


The girls returned in triumph, bearing their 
prisoners in tow, the grinning officer close at hand. 
When the boys saw them, they were greeted with 
loud shouts of delighted surprise. 

“We got our men, too,” Burd told them bois¬ 
terously, after the officer had taken the women 
away. “No more ghosts for ours, girls! We 
have laid ’em for good!” 

“And in more senses than one,” added Darry, 
with a grin. 

“Come on over and see this bunch of low¬ 
brows,” said Fol, pointing to the group of captors 
and captives. The latter were still filling the air 
with shrieks and giving the officers a most un¬ 
pleasant time of it. 

Curiously, the girls and lads approached—but 
not too closely. An officer detached himself from 
the group and came toward them. It was the tall 
man whom they had already met twice that night. 
He smiled jubilantly upon them. 

“One of those prisoners is Pietro Pebbo,” he 
informed them. “He is one of the slickest coun¬ 
terfeiters and law breakers the police have known 
for many a year, and he has gathered about him 
a choice set of scoundrels. I would like to ask 
one question,” he added, adjusting his pocket 
torch so that it illumined their faces. “Who is 
responsible for that radio message?” 



A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


203 


Darry took Jessie by the hand and drew her 
forward. 

“The idea was the property of this young lady,” 
he said gravely. “Allow me to introduce Miss 
Jessie Norwood!” 

“The service thanks you, Miss Norwood,” he 
said, bowing gallantly in acknowledgment of the 
introduction. “We all thank you.” 

“Except Pietro Pebbo!” murmured Amy, the 
irrepressible. 

It was the day after the sensational capture of 
the “ghosts” down by the swamp, and the girls 
and boys were enjoying a period of well-earned 
leisure. Besides, having scarcely slept the night 
before, they really needed rest. 

It was Aunt Emma who broke into their peace¬ 
ful content by rising suddenly and starting toward 
the house. 

“What troubles you, my dear aunt?” inquired 
Burd, lazily. “I can see by the look in your eye 
that there is something on your mind.” 

“I am going to write to Phrosy,” returned Aunt 
Emma, briskly. “Now that the ghosts have 
departed, it is high time she came back to the 
kitchen.” 

“Oh, won’t we have a lovely time with Phrosy 
and no ghosts?” sighed Nell, looking out toward 
the placid waters of Lake Towako. “Lucky the 



204 


A CAPTURE BY RADIO 


fire spared our wonderful view. Where are you 
going, Jess?” 

Jessie, on the way to the lodge, looked over 
her shoulder with a smile. 

“I just happened to think that we haven’t set 
up our radio yet. I am going to hear a radio con¬ 
cert before I am very much older or know the 
reason why.” 

Amy rose protestingly from the grassy couch 
that seemed just made for laziness. 

“That child will be the death of me, yet. She 
is a very glutton for work.” 

“Just the same,” said Nell, as she prepared to 
join them, “it will be mighty good to ‘listen in’ 
again.” 


THE END 



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